| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: half a mind to burst into a laugh. It ended in a smile as involuntary
as a grimace of pain.
"A mistake . . ." he began, slowly, and then found himself unable to
say another word.
"Yes . . . it was honest," she said very low, as if speaking to the
memory of a feeling in a remote past.
He exploded.
"Curse your honesty! . . . Is there any honesty in all this! . . .
When did you begin to be honest? Why are you here? What are you now?
. . . Still honest? . . . "
He walked at her, raging, as if blind; during these three quick
Tales of Unrest |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: "Nor fat either!"
"No, nor fat, Mr. Cary. Do you suppose fat men haven't souls to be
saved as well as thin ones, and hearts to burst, too, as well as
stomachs? Fat! Fat can feel, I reckon, as well as lean. Do you
suppose there's naught inside here but beer?"
And he laid his hand, as Drayton might have said, on that stout
bastion, hornwork, ravelin, or demilune, which formed the outworks
to the citadel of his purple isle of man.
"Naught but beer?--Cheese, I suppose?"
"Bread?"
"Beef?"
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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 Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: At the moment selected by our beautiful accomplice,
Inspector Weymouth and a body of detectives entirely surrounded it;
a river police launch lay off the wharf which opened from it
on the river-side; and this upon a singularly black night,
than which a better could not have been chosen.
"You will fulfill your promise to me?" said Karamaneh,
and looked up into my face.
She was enveloped in a big, loose cloak, and from the shadow
of the hood her wonderful eyes gleamed out like stars.
"What do you wish us to do?" asked Nayland Smith.
"You--and Dr. Petrie," she replied swiftly, "must enter first,
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
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 Master of the World by Jules Verne: wishes to be."
"True, Strock. And to my mind there is only one way of dealing with
him, and that is to offer him such an enormous price that he cannot
refuse to sell his invention."
Mr. Ward was right. Indeed, the government had already made the
effort to secure speech with this hero of the day, than whom surely
no human being has ever better merited the title. The press had
widely spread the news, and this extraordinary individual must
assuredly know what the government desired of him, and how completely
he could name the terms he wished.
"Surely," added Mr. Ward, "this invention can be of no personal use
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