| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: artificial Diana, gilded, heroic, poised, wind-ruled,
on the tower, shimmered in the clear light of her
namesake in the sky. Along came my poet, hurry-
ing, hatted, haired, emitting dactyls, spondees and
dactylis. I seized him.
"Bill," said I (in the magazine he is Cleon), "give
me a lift. I am on an assignment to find out the
Voice of the city. You see, it's a special order. Ordi-
narily a symposium comprising the views of Henry
Clews, John L. Sullivan, Edwin Markham, May Ir-
win and Charles Schwab would be about all. But this
The Voice of the City |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: describing the wonders of heaven and beneath the heavens I obey the
Lord's command. Others have the right to believe me or not as they
choose. I cannot put them into the state in which God has put me; it
is not in my power to enable them to converse with Angels, nor to work
miracles within their understanding; they alone can be the instrument
of their rise to angelic intercourse. It is now twenty-eight years
since I have lived in the Spiritual world with angels, and on earth
with men; for it pleased God to open the eyes of my Spirit as he did
that of Paul, and of Daniel and Elisha.'
"And yet," continued the pastor, thoughtfully, "certain persons have
had visions of the spiritual world through the complete detachment
Seraphita |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: at her heart. For it was not to Franz that she could tell the
thoughts that came to her lips now as she sank down, wringing her
hands, before a picture of the Madonna: "Oh Holy Virgin, Mother
of our Lord, plead for me! let me be with my dear mistress when
the terrible time comes and they take her husband away from her,
or, if preferring death to disgrace, he ends his life by his own
hand!"
CHAPTER XI
IN THE POLICE COURT
Commissioner Von Riedau sat at his desk late that evening,
finishing up some important papers. The quiet of an undisturbed
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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 The Death of the Lion by Henry James: been the ground of my original appeal to Mr. Pinhorn, who was now
annoyed with me for having lost so many days. He bundled me off -
we would at least not lose another. I've always thought his sudden
alertness a remarkable example of the journalistic instinct.
Nothing had occurred, since I first spoke to him, to create a
visible urgency, and no enlightenment could possibly have reached
him. It was a pure case of profession flair - he had smelt the
coming glory as an animal smells its distant prey.
CHAPTER II.
I MAY as well say at once that this little record pretends in no
degree to be a picture either of my introduction to Mr. Paraday or
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