| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the brown body lay a long rifle. The man's eyes watched,
unblinking, the two specks far below him whom he knew
and had known for an hour were gringos.
Another brown body wormed itself forward to his side and
peered over the edge of the declivity down upon the white
men. He spoke a few words in a whisper to him who watched
with the rifle, and then crawled back again and disappeared.
And all the while, onward and upward came Billy Byrne and
Eddie Shorter, each knowing in his heart that if not already,
then at any moment a watcher would discover them and a
little later a bullet would fly that would find one of them, and
The Mucker |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: and I knew that the attendants were dealing with him.
I was so frightened that I crept into bed, and pulled
the clothes over my head, putting my fingers in my ears.
I was not then a bit sleepy, at least so I thought,
but I must have fallen asleep, for except dreams, I do not
remember anything until the morning, when Jonathan woke me.
I think that it took me an effort and a little time to realize
where I was, and that it was Jonathan who was bending over me.
My dream was very peculiar, and was almost typical of the way
that waking thoughts become merged in, or continued in, dreams.
I thought that I was asleep, and waiting for Jonathan to come back.
Dracula |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: shipped by poor and lowly and oppressed. The money
he took from the King's tax gatherers he returned to
the miserable peasants of the district, and once when
Henry III sent a little expedition against him he sur-
rounded and captured the entire force, and, stripping
them, gave their clothing to the poor, and escorted
them naked back to the very gates of London.
By the time he was twenty Norman the Devil, as the
King himself had dubbed him, was known by reputa-
tion throughout all England, though no man had seen
his face and lived, other than his friends and followers.
The Outlaw of Torn |
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 A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: closer and more fascinating. Parents are not always excluded from
such compensations: it happens sometimes that when the children go
out at the door the lover comes in at the window. Indeed it happens
now oftener than it used to, because people remain much longer in the
sexual arena. The cultivated Jewess no longer cuts off her hair at
her marriage. The British matron has discarded her cap and her
conscientious ugliness; and a bishop's wife at fifty has more of the
air of a _femme galante_ than an actress had at thirty-five in her
grandmother's time. But as people marry later, the facts of age and
time still inexorably condemn most parents to comparative solitude
when their children marry. This may be a privation and may be a
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