| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: that they have, at the end of twenty years, grown rusty. Men of this
type fail in tact with imperturbable coolness, talk folly wittily,
distrust good with extreme shrewdness, and take incredible pains to
fall into traps.
When, by a play of his knife and fork which proclaimed him a good
feeder, he had made up for lost time, he began to look round on the
company. His astonishment was great when he observed the two
Republican officers, and he questioned Madame du Gua with a look,
while she, for all answer, showed him Mademoiselle de Verneuil in the
same way. When he saw the siren whose demeanor had silenced the
suspicions Madame du Gua had excited among the guests, the face of the
The Chouans |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: of fine gravel and rounded stones run down to the open sea,
and polished boulders and streaked rocks lift up above the
granulated snow. But all that is gone in a few weeks, and the
wild winter locks down again on the land; while at sea the ice
tears up and down the offing, jamming and ramming, and splitting
and hitting, and pounding and grounding, till it all freezes
together, ten feet thick, from the land outward to deep water.
In the winter Kadlu would follow the seal to the edge of this
land-ice, and spear them as they came up to breathe at their
blow-holes. The seal must have open water to live and catch fish
in, and in the deep of winter the ice would sometimes run eighty
The Second Jungle Book |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: them that a finger first enveloped in
asbestos, and then in a double case of wire-
gauze, might be held a long time in the
flame of a spirit-lamp or candle before the
heat became inconvenient. A fireman having
his hand within a double asbestos
glove, and its palm protected by a piece of
asbestos cloth, seized with impunity a
large piece of red hot iron, carried it
deliberately to the distance of 150 feet,
inflamed straw with it, and brought it back
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
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 Common Sense by Thomas Paine: differing only, in what is called, their Christian names.
In page forty, I threw out a few thoughts on the propriety of a
Continental Charter, (for I only presume to offer hints, not plans)
and in this place, I take the liberty of rementioning the subject,
by observing, that a charter is to be understood as a bond
of solemn obligation, which the whole enters into,
to support the right of every separate part,
whether of religion, personal freedom, or property.
A firm bargain and a right reckoning make long friends.
In a former page I likewise mentioned the necessity of a large
and equal representation; and there is no political matter
Common Sense |
