| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: and open it at page two hundred and one.'
I obeyed, laying the book on the bed before him, and he began to
read the crabbed marks as easily as though they were good black-
letter.
'De Garcia--Juan. Height, appearance, family, false names, and so
on. This is it--history. Now listen.'
Then came some two pages of closely written matter, expressed in
secret signs that Fonseca translated as he read. It was brief
enough, but such a record as it contained I have never heard before
nor since. Here, set out against this one man's name, was well
nigh every wickedness of which a human being could be capable,
Montezuma's Daughter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: deserve, but not at present.
Now, when all the stars which were necessary to the creation of time had
attained a motion suitable to them, and had become living creatures having
bodies fastened by vital chains, and learnt their appointed task, moving in
the motion of the diverse, which is diagonal, and passes through and is
governed by the motion of the same, they revolved, some in a larger and
some in a lesser orbit--those which had the lesser orbit revolving faster,
and those which had the larger more slowly. Now by reason of the motion of
the same, those which revolved fastest appeared to be overtaken by those
which moved slower although they really overtook them; for the motion of
the same made them all turn in a spiral, and, because some went one way and
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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 Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: That particular store prides itself on its cheese department.
It boasts that there one can get anything in cheese from the simple
cottage variety to imposing mottled Stilton. There are cheeses
from France, cheeses from Switzerland, cheeses from Holland. Brick
and parmesan, Edam and limburger perfumed the atmosphere.
Behind the counters were big, full-fed men in white aprons,
and coats. They flourished keen bright knives. As Jennie gazed,
one of them, in a moment of idleness, cut a tiny wedge from a rich
yellow Swiss cheese and stood nibbling it absently, his eyes
wandering toward the blonde gelatine demonstrator. Jennie swayed,
and caught the counter. She felt horribly faint and queer. She
Buttered Side Down |
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 Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: several men of an appearance more than decent, and bearing on
its panels, instead of a trader's name, a coat-of-arms too
modest to be deciphered from where I sat. It drew up before
my house, the door of which was immediately opened by one of
the men. His companions - I counted seven of them in all -
proceeded, with disciplined activity, to take from the van
and carry into the house a variety of hampers, bottle-
baskets, and boxes, such as are designed for plate and
napery. The windows of the dining-room were thrown widely
open, as though to air it; and I saw some of those within
laying the table for a meal. Plainly, I concluded, my tenant
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