| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: with the blood of so many innocent men. And then, beside his fear,
arose Remorse.
In order to prevent during his lifetime the abduction of his hidden
treasure, he took the most cruel precautions against sleep; besides
which, his commercial relations put him in the way of obtaining
powerful anti-narcotics. His struggles to keep awake were awful--alone
with night, silence, Remorse, and Fear, with all the thoughts that
man, instinctively perhaps, has best embodied--obedient thus to a
moral truth as yet devoid of actual proof.
At last this man so powerful, this heart so hardened by political and
commercial life, this genius, obscure in history, succumbed to the
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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 Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: would show him that there were just as good fellows about as Mr.
Carl Nilsson.
But all this faded out when Carl joined her--Carl, so straight,
clear-skinned, brown, and ruddy; his teeth so white; his eyes so
blue! She could see out of the corner of her eye how the hair
curled in tiny rings on his temples.
Still it was to Quigg she talked. And more than that, she gave
him her prayer-book to carry until she fixed her glove--the glove
that needed no fixing at all. And she chattered on about the
dance at the boat club, and the picnic which was to come off when
the weather grew warmer.
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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 People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The members of the tribe showed great interest in me,
especially in my clothing, the like of which, of course, they
never had seen. They pulled and hauled upon me, and some of
them struck me; but for the most part they were not inclined
to brutality. It was only the hairier ones, who most closely
resembled the Sto-lu, who maltreated me. At last my captors led
me into a great cave in the mouth of which a fire was burning.
The floor was littered with filth, including the bones of many
animals, and the atmosphere reeked with the stench of human
bodies and putrefying flesh. Here they fed me, releasing my
arms, and I ate of half-cooked aurochs steak and a stew which
The People That Time Forgot |
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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: PROFESSOR. - Do you mean to say that you have known me so long as
that?
OLD AGE. I do. I left my card on you longer ago than that, but I
am afraid you never read it; yet I see you have it with you.
PROFESSOR. - Where?
OLD AGE. - There, between your eyebrows, - three straight lines
running up and down; all the probate courts know that token, - "Old
Age, his mark." Put your forefinger on the inner end of one
eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner end of the other
eyebrow; now separate the fingers, and you will smooth out my sign-
manual; that's the way you used to look before I left my card on
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
