| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: am going to tell you another story, and if you don't tell me I'm a
fool and a craven, on the strength of it, you are no friend of mine."
We stumbled through the twilight of the staircase into the blackness
of the shuttered kitchen. The house had the moldy smell of closed
buildings: even on that warm September morning it was damp and chilly.
As we stepped into the sunshine McKnight gave a shiver.
"Now that we are out," he said, "I don't mind telling you that I
have been there before. Do you remember the night you left, and,
the face at the window?"
"When you speak of it - yes."
"Well, I was curious about that thing," he went on, as we started
The Man in Lower Ten |
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 The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: The sand is entirely, or in greater part, siliceous; but some
points are of a black colour, and from their glossy surface
possess a metallic lustre. The thickness of the wall of the
tube varies from a thirtieth to a twentieth of an inch, and
occasionally even equals a tenth. On the outside the grains
of sand are rounded, and have a slightly glazed appearance:
I could not distinguish any signs of crystallization. In a
similar manner to that described in the Geological Transactions,
the tubes are generally compressed, and have deep
longitudinal furrows, so as closely to resemble a shrivelled
vegetable stalk, or the bark of the elm or cork tree. Their
The Voyage of the Beagle |
