| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: most palpable, which seemed to enter one's breast
with the breath of one's nostrils and soak into one's
limbs through every pore of one's skin.
The ridiculous victim of jealousy had for some
reason or other to stop his engines just then. The
steamer drifted slowly up with the tide. Oblivious
of my new surroundings I walked the deck, in anx-
ious, deadened abstraction, a commingling of
romantic reverie with a very practical survey of
my qualifications. For the time was approaching
for me to behold my command and to prove my
The Shadow Line |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: of the stones we had thrown. And vividly do I retain
the picture of him as he stood on the edge of the
forest whither he had finally retreated. He was
looking back at us, his writhing lips lifted clear of
the very roots of his huge fangs, his hair bristling
and his tail lashing. He gave one last snarl and slid
from view among the trees.
And then such a chattering as went up. We swarmed out
of our holes, examining the marks his claws had made on
the crumbling rock of the bluff, all of us talking at
once. One of the two Folk who had been caught in the
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: peasantry and bourgeoisie, and twelve hundred millions, at least, of
products; or, including the loss from non-circulation, three thousand
millions in half a century!"
"The moral effect is worse than the material effect," cried the
rector. "We are making beggar-proprietors among the people and half-
taught communities of the lesser bourgeoisie; and the fatal maxim
'Each for himself,' which had its effect upon the upper classes in
July of this year, will soon have gangrened the middle classes. A
proletariat devoid of sentiment, with no other god than envy, no other
fanaticism than the despair of hunger, without faith, without belief,
will come forward before long and put its foot on the heart of the
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Finished by H. Rider Haggard: it is to me to have such guests as you are in this place," and
her dark eyes filled with tears.
By now we had passed to the side of the house in search of some
other flower that grew in the shade, I think it was mignonette,
and were out of sight of the verandah and quite alone.
"Mr. Quatermain," she said hurriedly, "I am wondering whether to
ask your advice about something, if you would give it. I have no
one to consult here," she added rather piteously.
"That is for you to decide. If you wish to do so I am old enough
to be your father, and will do my best to help."
We walked on to an orange grove that stood about forty yards
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