| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: for booty. But the torn window curtain and the overturned chairs
are peculiar.
"Of course there is always a possibility that the thief might have
entered one room while Siders was in the other; that the latter
might have surprised the robber in his search for money or valuables,
and that there might have been a hand-to-hand struggle before the
intruder could pull out his revolver. Oh, if I could only have seen
the body! This is working under terrific difficulties. The marks
of a hand-to-hand struggle would have been very plain on the clothes
and on the person of the murdered man. But this letter? I do not
understand this letter at all. It is the dead man's handwriting,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "I might let ye have some milk an' eggs an' butter an'
a leetle bacon an' mebby my ol' woman's got a loaf left
from her last bakin'; but we ain't been figgerin' on sup-
plyin' grub fer the United States army ef that's what yew
be buyin' fer."
A frowsy, rat-faced woman and a gawky youth of four-
teen stuck their heads out the doorway at either side of
the man. "I ain't got nothin' to sell," snapped the woman;
but as she spoke her eyes fell upon the fat bank roll in
the youth's hand. "Or, leastwise," she amended, "I ain't
got much more'n we need an' the price o' stuff's gone
The Oakdale Affair |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Rig Veda: Seven Rivers as mine own domain.
I, gifted with great wisdom, spread the floods abroad: by war
I found
for man the way to high success.
10 I set within these cows the white milk which no God, not
even
Tvastar's self, had there deposited,-
Much-longed-for, in the breasts, the udders of the kine, the
savoury
sweets of meath, the milk and Soma juice.
11 Even thus hath Indra Maghavan, truly bounteous, sped Gods
The Rig Veda |
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 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: the uncle of the author of this book, sustained alone with his
company of eighty-three men every effort of the hostile army.
Pontmercy was one of the three who emerged alive from that cemetery.
He was at Friedland. Then he saw Moscow. Then La Beresina, then Lutzen,
Bautzen, Dresden, Wachau, Leipzig, and the defiles of Gelenhausen;
then Montmirail, Chateau-Thierry, Craon, the banks of the Marne,
the banks of the Aisne, and the redoubtable position of Laon.
At Arnay-Le-Duc, being then a captain, he put ten Cossacks to the sword,
and saved, not his general, but his corporal. He was well slashed
up on this occasion, and twenty-seven splinters were extracted from
his left arm alone. Eight days before the capitulation of Paris
Les Miserables |
