| 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: Brady's description of traffic congestion at the Rush Street
bridge during the rush hour at night. The fire crackled cheerily.
The owners of the yellow-green eyes raised their frightful chorus
to the heavens. Conditions seemed again to have returned to normal.
And then, as though the hand of Death had reached out and touched
them all, the five men tensed into sudden rigidity.
Above the nocturnal diapason of the teeming jungle sounded a
dismal flapping of wings and over head, through the thick night,
a shadowy form passed across the diffused light of the flaring
camp-fire. Sinclair raised his rifle and fired. An eerie wail
floated down from above and the apparition, whatever it might
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 Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: a glass in my room until they were completely withered, and the
housemaid threw them out; and the petals of the other I pressed
between the leaves of my Bible - I have them still, and mean to
keep them always.
CHAPTER XIV - THE RECTOR
THE following day was as fine as the preceding one. Soon after
breakfast Miss Matilda, having galloped and blundered through a few
unprofitable lessons, and vengeably thumped the piano for an hour,
in a terrible humour with both me and it, because her mamma would
not give her a holiday, had betaken herself to her favourite places
of resort, the yards, the stables, and the dog-kennels; and Miss
Agnes Grey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: books and conversations, with exercise, the children, and every domestic
pleasure in my power to procure her, will, I trust, gradually overcome this
youthful attachment. I should not have a doubt of it were she slighted for
any other woman in the world than her own mother. How long Lady Susan will
be in town, or whether she returns here again, I know not. I could not be
cordial in my invitation, but if she chuses to come no want of cordiality
on my part will keep her away. I could not help asking Reginald if he
intended being in London this winter, as soon as I found her ladyship's
steps would be bent thither; and though he professed himself quite
undetermined, there was something in his look and voice as he spoke which
contradicted his words. I have done with lamentation; I look upon the event
Lady Susan |
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 Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: walked. "The actuality of a thing," said he, summing his clever
thoughts up, "is not disproved by its being inconceivable. Ideas alone
depend upon thought for their existence. There! Anybody can get off
stuff like that by the yard." He picked up a cork and a foot-rule,
tossed the cork, and sent it flying out of the window with the
foot-rule.
"Skip Berkeley," said the other boy.
"How much more is there?"
"Necessary and accidental truths," answered the tutor, reading the
subjects from his notes. "Hume and the causal law. The duality, or
multiplicity, of the ego."
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