| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: "Joseph Newmark, he keeps it most times," replied Heinzman, "but now
it is at my office for the foreclosure. I vill not foreclose; he
can send me to the penitentiary."
"Telephone Lambert in the morning to give it to me. No; here.
Write an order in this notebook."
Heinzman wrote the required order.
"I go," said he, suddenly weary.
Orde accompanied him down the street. The German was again light-
headed with the fever, mumbling about his daughter, the notes,
Carroll, the voices that had driven him to righteousness. By some
manoeuvring Orde succeeded in slipping him through the improvised
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: found the dead body of the apelike man--provided there is
sufficient space above high water; otherwise we shall have to
assemble it on deck and lower it over the side. After it is
assembled, I shall carry tackle and ropes to the cliff-top, and
then it will be comparatively simple to hoist the search-party
and its supplies in safety. Or I can make a sufficient number
of trips to land the entire party in the valley beyond the
barrier; all will depend, of course, upon what my first
reconnaissance reveals."
That afternoon we steamed slowly along the face of Caprona's
towering barrier.
The People That Time Forgot |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: and games--or, if need be, Pilgrimages; that the few may make money,
eat, drink, and be merry, as long as it can last. That, let it ape
as it may--as did the Caesars of old Rome at first--as another
Emperor did even in our own days--the forms of dead freedom, really
upholds an artificial luxury by brute force; and consecrates the
basest of all aristocracies, the aristocracy of the money-bag, by
the divine sanction of the bayonet.
That at all risks, even at the price of precious blood, the free
peoples of the earth must ward off from them; for, makeshift and
stop-gap as it is, it does not even succeed in what it tries to do.
It does not last. Have we not seen that it does not, cannot last?
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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 Intentions by Oscar Wilde: Giorgione. Here is a bit of Florentine majolica, and here a rude
lamp from some old Roman tomb. On the table lies a book of Hours,
'cased in a cover of solid silver gilt, wrought with quaint devices
and studded with small brilliants and rubies,' and close by it
'squats a little ugly monster, a Lar, perhaps, dug up in the sunny
fields of corn-bearing Sicily.' Some dark antique bronzes contrast
with the pale gleam of two noble CHRISTI CRUCIFIXI, one carved in
ivory, the other moulded in wax.' He has his trays of Tassie's
gems, his tiny Louis-Quatorze BONBONNIERE with a miniature by
Petitot, his highly prized 'brown-biscuit teapots, filagree-
worked,' his citron morocco letter-case, and his 'pomona-green'
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