| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: money, took some of the melted copper in
his hand, and after showing it to us, threw
it against the wall. He then squeezed the
fingers of his horny hand close together,
put it for a few minutes under his armpit,
to make it sweat, as he said; and, taking
it again out, drew it over a ladle filled with
melted copper, some of which he skimmed
off, and moved his hand backwards and
forwards, very quickly, by way of ostentation.
While I was viewing this performance,
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: heart and brain, have been distilled away, till nothing is left but a
word, a notion, which may patch a hole in his huge heaven-and-earth-
embracing system. He, too, is a commentator and a deducer; all has been
discovered; and he tries to discover nothing more. Those who followed
him seem to have commented on his comments. With him Neoplatonism
properly ends. Is its last utterance a culmination or a fall? Have the
Titans sealed heaven, or died of old age, "exhibiting," as Gibbon says
of them, "a deplorable instance of the senility of the human mind?"
Read Proclus, and judge for yourselves: but first contrive to finish
everything else you have to do which can possibly be useful to any human
being. Life is short, and Art--at least the art of obtaining practical
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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 Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: Mallard duck Greater bustard
Total, twenty-two kinds
APPENDIX III
For the benefit of the sportsman and gun crank who want plain
facts and no flapdoodle, the following statistics are offered. To
the lay reader this inclusion will be incomprehensible; but I
know my gun crank as I am one myself!
Army Springfield, model 1903 to take the 1906 cartridge, shooting
the Spitzer sharp point bullet. Stocked to suit me by Ludwig
Wundhammer, and fitted with Sheard gold bead front sight and
Lyman aperture receiver sight. With this I did most my shooting,
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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 Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: chance for delay, and at last would go down-stairs through the
arches, annoyed at the thought that we were children still and
had to go to bed while the grown-ups could stay up as long as
ever they liked.
A JOURNEY TO THE STEPPES
WHEN I was still a child and had not yet read "War and Peace," I
was told that Natásha Rostóf was Aunt
Tánya. When my father was asked whether that was true,
and whether Dmitry Rostóf was such and such a
person and Levin such and such another, he never gave a
definite answer, and one could not but feel that he disliked such
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