| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: dark shadows upon the green treetops eastward. The smoke
already extended far away to the east and west--to the By-
fleet pine woods eastward, and to Woking on the west. The
road was dotted with people running towards us. And very
faint now, but very distinct through the hot, quiet air, one
heard the whirr of a machine-gun that was presently stilled,
and an intermittent cracking of rifles. Apparently the Mar-
tians were setting fire to everything within range of their
Heat-Ray.
I am not an expert driver, and I had immediately to turn
my attention to the horse. When I looked back again the
War of the Worlds |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: young men of the day began to remark her. In fact, before long Malaga
was very much talked about in the questionable world of equivocal
women, who presently attacked her good fortune by calumnies. They said
she was a somnambulist, and the Pole was a magnetizer who was using
her to discover the philosopher's stone. Some even more envenomed
scandals drove her to a curiosity that was greater than Psyche's. She
reported them in tears to Paz.
"When I want to injure a woman," she said in conclusion, "I don't
calumniate her; I don't declare that some one magnetizes her to get
stones out of her, but I say plainly that she is humpbacked, and I
prove it. Why do you compromise me in this way?"
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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 Riverman by Stewart Edward White: with their wraps. He was surprised as he approached Miss Bishop to
lift her cloak from her shoulders, to find that the top of her
daintily poised head, with its soft, fine hair, came well below the
level of his eyes. Somehow her poise, her slender grace of movement
and of attitude, had lent her the impression of a stature she did
not possess. To-night her eyes, while fathomless as ever, shone
quietly in anticipation.
"Do you know," she told Orde delightedly, "I have never been to a
real candy pull in my life. It was so good of your mother to ask
me. What a dear she looks to-night. And is that your father? I'm
going to speak to him."
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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 Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: whose sting is death crept stealthily toward him over the matted
leaves, which shriveled and turned black at its very touch.
But Claus had been reared in Burzee, and was not afraid.
"Come to me, ye Knooks of the Forest!" he cried, and gave the low,
peculiar whistle that the Knooks know.
The panther, which was about to spring upon its victim, turned and
slunk away. The python swung itself into the tree and disappeared
among the leaves. The spider stopped short in its advance and hid
beneath a rotting log.
Claus had no time to notice them, for he was surrounded by a band of
harsh-featured Knooks, more crooked and deformed in appearance than
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
