| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: rungs of the ladder down which he felt his way cautiously lest a
broken rung or a misstep should hurl him downward.
As he descended thus slowly, the ladder seemed interminable and
the pit bottomless, yet he realized when at last he reached the
bottom that he could not have descended more than fifty feet.
The bottom of the ladder rested on a narrow ledge paved with what
felt like large round stones, but what he knew from experience to
be human skulls. He could not but marvel as to where so many
countless thousands of the things had come from, until he paused
to consider that the infancy of Caspak dated doubtlessly back
into remote ages, far beyond what the outer world considered the
Out of Time's Abyss |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: his ears.
The boats were afraid to close. They were hanging off,
irresolute; but why did Jorgenson not put an end to their
hesitation by a volley or two of musketry if only over their
heads? Through the anguish of his perplexity Lingard found
himself returning to life, to mere life with its sense of pain
and mortality, like a man awakened from a dream by a stab in the
breast. What did this silence of the Emma mean? Could she have
been already carried in the fog? But that was unthinkable. Some
sounds of resistance must have been heard. No, the boats hung off
because they knew with what desperate defence they would meet;
The Rescue |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: as you dared to do yesterday, I will show you who is master in this
house. Go! Don't let me set eyes on you; beg her pardon!"
Princess Mary asked Mademoiselle Bourienne's pardon, and also her
father's pardon for herself and for Philip the footman, who had begged
for her intervention.
At such moments something like a pride of sacrifice gathered in
her soul. And suddenly that father whom she had judged would look
for his spectacles in her presence, fumbling near them and not
seeing them, or would forget something that had just occurred, or take
a false step with his failing legs and turn to see if anyone had
noticed his feebleness, or, worst of all, at dinner when there were no
War and Peace |
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 Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: Chibouk was corrugated with evidences of deep thought: he was
calculating the chances of war. Then, "Sons of angels," he said, "the
die is cast! I shall suggest to the Ulema of the Imperial Ear that he
advise inaction. In the name of Allah, the council is adjourned."
UN-AMERICAN, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.
UNCTION, n. An oiling, or greasing. The rite of extreme unction
consists in touching with oil consecrated by a bishop several parts of
the body of one engaged in dying. Marbury relates that after the rite
had been administered to a certain wicked English nobleman it was
discovered that the oil had not been properly consecrated and no other
could be obtained. When informed of this the sick man said in anger:
The Devil's Dictionary |
