| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: was wrong he went at it again, putting this and that line into
connection, adding another here and another there, until suddenly, as
he made a last change, a quick flash of light almost blinded him, and
the switch-board crackled ominously, as if struggling to carry a
powerful current.
Rob covered his face at the flash, but finding himself unhurt he took
away his hands and with blinking eyes attempted to look at a wonderful
radiance which seemed to fill the room, making it many times brighter
than the brightest day.
Although at first completely dazzled, he peered before him until he
discovered that the light was concentrated near one spot, from which
The Master Key |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: unsuspected, the mise en scene.
II
About the middle of January Mabel Andrews A wrote to Sara Lee from
France, where she was already installed in a hospital at Calais.
The evening before the letter came Harvey had brought round the
engagement ring. He had made a little money in war stocks, and into
the ring he had put every dollar of his profits - and a great love, and
gentleness, and hopes which he did not formulate even to himself.
It was a solitaire diamond, conventionally set, and larger, far larger,
than the modest little stone on which Harvey had been casting anxious
glances for months.
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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: same swift yet deliberate ranks; they gathered with the same
leisurely pauses; they broke with the same rush and roar. They
seemed no larger, but everything else had been struck small--the
tiny ships, the toy piers, the ant-like swarm of people on the
shore. She looked on it as a spectacle. It had as yet no human
significance.
"Poor fellows!" cried Mina.
"What?" asked Carroll.
"Don't you see them?" queried the other.
Carroll looked, and in the rigging of the schooner she made out a
number of black objects.
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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 Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: had suddenly asserted itself. His brain had expanded, his senses had
developed. His thoughts comprehended the whole world; he saw all the
things of earth as if he had been raised to some high pinnacle above
the world.
Until that evening at the play he had loved Aquilina to distraction.
Rather than give her up he would have shut his eyes to her
infidelities; and now all that blind passion had passed away as a
cloud vanishes in the sunlight.
Jenny was delighted to succeed to her mistress' position and fortune,
and did the cashier's will in all things; but Castanier, who could
read the inmost thoughts of the soul, discovered the real motive
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