| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: well behind him. An instant later Mr. Morrow quitted me abruptly,
as if he had really carried something off with him. To reassure
myself, watching his broad back recede, I only grasped my
manuscript the tighter. He went to the back door of the house, the
one he had come out from, but on trying the handle he appeared to
find it fastened. So he passed round into the front garden, and by
listening intently enough I could presently hear the outer gate
close behind him with a bang. I thought again of the thirty-seven
influential journals and wondered what would be his revenge. I
hasten to add that he was magnanimous: which was just the most
dreadful thing he could have been. THE TATLER published a charming
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: panel swung toward her, revealing a dark aperture in the wall
behind.
"Look, Lan-O!" she cried. "See what I have found--a hole in which
we may hide the thing upon the floor."
Lan-O joined her and together the two investigated the dark
aperture, finding a small platform from which a narrow runway led
downward into Stygian darkness. Thick dust covered the floor
within the doorway, indicating that a great period of time had
elapsed since human foot had trod it--a secret way, doubtless,
unknown to living Manatorians. Here they dragged the corpse of
E-Med, leaving it upon the platform, and as they left the dark
The Chessmen of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: football and tobacco smoke. Women," I said, "are only their
playthings. And when they do grow up and get a little intellagence
they use it in making money."
There has been a story in the school--I got it from one of the
little girls--that I was disapointed in love in early youth, the
object of my atachment having been the Tener in our Church choir at
home. I daresay I should have denied the soft impeachment, but I
did not. It was, although not appearing so at the time, my first
downward step on the path that leads to destruction.
"The way of the Transgresser is hard"--Bible.
I come now to the momentous day of my return to my dear home for
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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 The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: "I have come again to ask you to take me away from him," she said simply.
And she lifted her face to me.
Her words struck a chord in my heart which sang with strange music,
with music so barbaric that, frankly, I blushed to find it harmony.
Have I said that she was beautiful? It can convey no faint
conception of her. With her pure, fair skin, eyes like the velvet
darkness of the East, and red lips so tremulously near to mine,
she was the most seductively lovely creature I ever had looked upon.
In that electric moment my heart went out in sympathy to every man
who had bartered honor, country, all for a woman's kiss.
"I will see that you are placed under proper protection,"
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
