| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: of throwing them off the scent of my purposed attempt
at escape. If they thought that I was so satisfied
with my lot within Phutra that I would voluntarily return
when I had once had so excellent an opportunity to escape,
they would never for an instant imagine that I could
be occupied in arranging another escape immediately
upon my return to the city.
So they led me before a slimy Mahar who clung to a slimy
rock within the large room that was the thing's office.
With cold, reptilian eyes the creature seemed to bore through
the thin veneer of my deceit and read my inmost thoughts.
At the Earth's Core |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: the morning and falling again at night only to fall again the next
day. I am cold now as I speak to you of that cavern without an
opening, cold, sombre, in which I lived. I, poor little thing that I
was! brought up in a convent like a mystic rose, knowing nothing of
marriage, developing late, I was happy at first; I enjoyed the
goodwill and harmony of our family. The birth of my poor boy, who is
all me--you must have been struck by the likeness? my hair, my eyes,
the shape of my face, my mouth, my smile, my teeth!--well, his birth
was a relief to me; my thoughts were diverted by the first joys of
maternity from my husband, who gave me no pleasure and did nothing for
me that was kind or amiable; those joys were all the keener because I
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: "Forty years and five," said Machua Appa, "have I followed my
lord, the elephant, but never have I heard that any child of man
had seen what this child has seen. By all the Gods of the Hills,
it is--what can we say?" and he shook his head.
When they got back to camp it was time for the evening meal.
Petersen Sahib ate alone in his tent, but he gave orders that the
camp should have two sheep and some fowls, as well as a double
ration of flour and rice and salt, for he knew that there would be
a feast.
Big Toomai had come up hotfoot from the camp in the plains to
search for his son and his elephant, and now that he had found
The Jungle Book |
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 Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: made some extraordinary transaction about his life insurance
policy, and was buying a brig. We put in, put down three
thousand pounds, and forthwith the life insurance transaction and
the Pollack side of this finance vanished into thin air, leaving
Pollack, I regret to say, in the brig and in the secret--except
so far as canadium and the filament went--as residuum. We
discussed earnestly whether we should charter a steamer or go on
with the brig, but we decided on the brig as a less conspicuous
instrument for an enterprise that was after all, to put it
plainly, stealing.
But that was one of our last enterprises before our great crisis,
|
