| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: evidently pleased and excited. The telegram read as follows: "Man
arrested here in possession of described purse containing four ten
gulden notes and four guldens in silver. Arrested in store of
second-hand clothes dealer Goldstamm. Will arrive this evening in
Vienna under guard."
The message was signed by the Chief of the Pressburg police.
Muller laid the paper on the desk without a word. There was a watch
on this desk already; it was a heavy gold watch, unusually thick,
with the initials L. W. on the cover. Just as Muller laid down the
telegram, a door outside was opened and the commissioner covered the
watch hastily. There was a loud knock at his own door and an
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: chop square off that way before it come to anything,
but I warn't going to say so, because I could see Tom
was souring up pretty fast over the way it flatted out
and the way Jim had popped on to the weak place in
it, and I don't think it's fair for everybody to pile on
to a feller when he's down. But Tom he whirls on
me and says:
"What do YOU think of the tale?"
Of course, then, I had to come out and make a clean
breast and say it did seem to me, too, same as it did
to Jim, that as long as the tale stopped square 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 Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: designs of Christianity: and that plantation though it has had
more adversaries than perhaps any one upon earth, yet, having
obtained help from God, it continues to this day." Mather
occasionally relieves the austerity of his descriptions with
images full of tender feeling: after having spoken of an English
lady whose religious ardor had brought her to America with her
husband, and who soon after sank under the fatigues and
privations of exile, he adds, "As for her virtuous husband, Isaac
Johnson,
He tryed
To live without her, liked it not, and dyed."
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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 A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: his sight was troubled by her sinister appearance.
The presence of the panther, even asleep, could not fail to produce
the effect which the magnetic eyes of the serpent are said to have on
the nightingale.
For a moment the courage of the soldier began to fail before this
danger, though no doubt it would have risen at the mouth of a cannon
charged with shell. Nevertheless, a bold thought brought daylight to
his soul and sealed up the source of the cold sweat which sprang forth
on his brow. Like men driven to bay, who defy death and offer their
body to the smiter, so he, seeing in this merely a tragic episode,
resolved to play his part with honor to the last.
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