| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: inhibition vanishes. The man who was delaying and delaying half an
hour ago will now be cutting the most venturesome capers in the air.
Few men are in a hurry to get down again. I mean that quite apart
from the hesitation of landing, they like being up there."
Then, abruptly, Benham comes back to his theory.
"Fear, you see, is the inevitable janitor, but it is not the ruler
of experience. That is what I am driving at in all this. The bark
of danger is worse than its bite. Inside the portals there may be
events and destruction, but terror stays defeated at the door. It
may be that when that old man was killed by a horse the child who
watched suffered more than he did. . . .
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: Meanwhile, we must wait for the night--I hear my uncle's footsteps
echoing down the hall."
Sir Nathaniel nodded his approval.
CHAPTER XXI--GREEN LIGHT
When old Mr. Salton had retired for the night, Adam and Sir
Nathaniel returned to the study. Things went with great regularity
at Lesser Hill, so they knew that there would be no interruption to
their talk.
When their cigars were lighted, Sir Nathaniel began.
"I hope, Adam, that you do not think me either slack or changeable
of purpose. I mean to go through this business to the bitter end--
Lair of the White Worm |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: meant to get into trouble with such people, you would know enough to pay
what you were told to pay and shut up.
What made all this the more painful was that it was so hard on the few
that had really done their best. There was poor old ponas Jokubas, for
instance--he had already given five dollars, and did not every one know
that Jokubas Szedvilas had just mortgaged his delicatessen store for two
hundred dollars to meet several months' overdue rent? And then there was
withered old poni Aniele--who was a widow, and had three children, and the
rheumatism besides, and did washing for the tradespeople on Halsted Street
at prices it would break your heart to hear named. Aniele had given the
entire profit of her chickens for several months. Eight of them she owned,
|
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 Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: of unearthly existence, bordering upon the magic of the invisible
forces, sustained by the inspiration of life-giving and death-
dealing winds.
So that big steamer, dying by a sudden stroke, drifted, an unwieldy
corpse, away from the track of other ships. And she would have
been posted really as "overdue," or maybe as "missing," had she not
been sighted in a snowstorm, vaguely, like a strange rolling
island, by a whaler going north from her Polar cruising ground.
There was plenty of food on board, and I don't know whether the
nerves of her passengers were at all affected by anything else than
the sense of interminable boredom or the vague fear of that unusual
The Mirror of the Sea |
