| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: raising genial dews from the bags of the rich and idle, and returning
them in fertilising showers on the poor and industrious:
an operation which more enlightened statesmen have happily reversed,
to the unspeakable benefit of the community at large.
The light footsteps of Marian were impressed on the morning dew beside
the firmer step of her lover, and they shook its large drops about them
as they cleared themselves a passage through the thick tall fern,
without any fear of catching cold, which was not much in fashion
in the twelfth century. Robin was as hospitable as Cathmor;
for seven men stood on seven paths to call the stranger to his feast.
It is true, he superadded the small improvement of making
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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 Riverman by Stewart Edward White: like a second Paul Revere, crying that the iron bridge had gone, and
the logs were racing down river toward the booms.
"It just went out!" he answered the eager exclamations of the men
who crowded around him. "That's all I know. It went out! And the
other bridges! Sure! All but the Lake Shore! Don't know why that
didn't go out. No; the logs didn't jam there; just slid right
under!"
"That settles it," said Welton, turning away.
"You aren't going to quit!" cried Orde.
"Certainly. You're crazy!" said Welton with some asperity. "If
they can't stop a little jam with iron, what are your wooden
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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 Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: struck Savarus.
Rosalie, on her part, had made up her mind, in her strong girl's head,
to get Monsieur de Savarus into the drawing-room and acquainted with
the society of the Hotel de Rupt. So far she had limited her desires
to seeing and hearing Albert. She had compounded, so to speak, and a
composition is often no more than a truce.
Les Rouxey, the inherited estate of the Wattevilles, was worth just
ten thousand francs a year; but in other hands it would have yielded a
great deal more. The Baron in his indifference--for his wife was to
have, and in fact had, forty thousand francs a year--left the
management of les Rouxey to a sort of factotum, an old servant of the
Albert Savarus |
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 Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: preposterous communication? The idea, we could not but grant, was well
conceived, but it was too grotesque to be taken seriously. Mr. Hale said he
would preserve it as a literary curiosity, and shoved it away in a pigeonhole.
Then we promptly forgot its existence. And as promptly, on the 1st of October,
going over the morning mail, we read the following:
OFFICE OF THE M. OF M., October 1, 1899.
MR. EBEN HALE, Money Baron:
Dear Sir,--Your victim has met his fate. An hour ago, on East Thirty-ninth
Street, a workingman was thrust through the heart with a knife. Ere you read
this his body will be lying at the Morgue. Go and look upon your handiwork.
On October 14th, in token of our earnestness in this matter, and in case you
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