| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: malaria is breeding with this rain. (No fear for those who do not
sleep on shore.) A little iron hut had been placed there since
1858; but the windows had been carried off, the door broken down,
the roof pierced all over. In it, we sat to make experiments; and
how it recalled Birkenhead! There was Thomson, there was my
testing board, the strings of gutta-percha; Harry P- even,
battering with the batteries; but where was my darling Annie?
Whilst I sat feet in sand, with Harry alone inside the hut -mats,
coats, and wood to darken the window - the others visited the
murderous old friar, who is of the order of Scaloppi, and for whom
I brought a letter from his superior, ordering him to pay us
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: than Bara, the deer, came daintily down to drink.
But more than Bara was coming. Behind the graceful buck
came another which the deer could neither see nor scent, but
whose movements were apparent to Tarzan of the Apes because
of the elevated position of the ape-man's ambush.
He knew not yet exactly the nature of the thing that moved
so stealthily through the jungle a few hundred yards behind
the deer; but he was convinced that it was some great beast
of prey stalking Bara for the selfsame purpose as that which
prompted him to await the fleet animal. Numa, perhaps, or
Sheeta, the panther.
The Beasts of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: Only the figures and the proper names varied. In some cases the
price per acre was twenty-two dollars. In Annixter's case it was
thirty.
"And--and the company promised to sell to me, to--to all of us,"
gasped old Broderson, "at TWO DOLLARS AND A HALF an acre."
It was not alone the ranchers immediately around Bonneville who
would be plundered by this move on the part of the Railroad. The
"alternate section" system applied throughout all the San
Joaquin. By striking at the Bonneville ranchers a terrible
precedent was established. Of the crowd of guests in the harness
room alone, nearly every man was affected, every man menaced with
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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 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: gentleman of my adventure. There are three windows looking on the
court on the first floor; none below; the windows are always shut
but they're clean. And then there is a chimney which is generally
smoking; so somebody must live there. And yet it's not so sure;
for the buildings are so packed together about the court, that
it's hard to say where one ends and another begins."
The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then
"Enfield," said Mr. Utterson, "that's a good rule of yours."
"Yes, I think it is," returned Enfield.
"But for all that," continued the lawyer, "there's one point I
want to ask: I want to ask the name of that man who walked over
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
