| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: honor of their gods. The two men that were sent, having casually
heard that Timoleon was about to sacrifice, came directly into the
temple with poniards under their cloaks, and pressing in among the
crowd, by little and little got up close to the altar; but, as they
were just looking for a sign from each other to begin the attempt, a
third person struck one of them over the head with a sword, upon
whose sudden fall, neither he that gave the blow, nor the partisan of
him that received it, kept their stations any longer; but the one,
making way with his bloody sword, put no stop to his flight, till he
gained the top of a certain lofty precipice, while the other, laying
hold of the altar, besought Timoleon to spare his life, and he would
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: possible dimensions--into the Unknown. This possibility had
occurred to me again and again while I was making the machine;
but then I had cheerfully accepted it as an unavoidable risk--
one of the risks a man has got to take! Now the risk was
inevitable, I no longer saw it in the same cheerful light. The
fact is that insensibly, the absolute strangeness of everything,
the sickly jarring and swaying of the machine, above all, the
feeling of prolonged falling, had absolutely upset my nerve. I
told myself that I could never stop, and with a gust of petulance
I resolved to stop forthwith. Like an impatient fool, I lugged
over the lever, and incontinently the thing went reeling over,
The Time Machine |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: belt with two empty holsters. He had laid aside his sixes--possibly in
the /jacal/ of the fair Pancha--and had forgotten them when the
passing of the fairer Alvarita had enticed him to her trail. His hands
now flew instinctively to the holsters, but finding the weapons gone,
he spread his fingers outward with the eloquent, abjuring, deprecating
Latin gesture, and stood like a rock. Seeing his plight, the newcomer
unbuckled his own belt containing two revolvers, threw it upon the
ground, and continued to advance.
"Splendid!" murmured Alvarita, with flashing eyes.
*****
As Bob Buckley, according to the mad code of bravery that his
Heart of the West |
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 Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: things which were not clearly understandable, and which the doctor
admonished them to keep to themselves.
Richards was right; the cheques were never seen again.
A nurse must have talked in her sleep, for within two days the
forbidden gabblings were the property of the town; and they were of
a surprising sort. They seemed to indicate that Richards had been a
claimant for the sack himself, and that Burgess had concealed that
fact and then maliciously betrayed it.
Burgess was taxed with this and stoutly denied it. And he said it
was not fair to attach weight to the chatter of a sick old man who
was out of his mind. Still, suspicion was in the air, and there was
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
