| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Taken all around, I had only substituted one mystery for another.
If I knew now why Rosie had taken the basket of dishes, I did not
know who had spoken to her and followed her along the drive. If
I knew that Louise was in the lodge, I did not know why she was
there. If I knew that Arnold Armstrong had spent some time
in the lodge the night before he was murdered, I was no nearer
the solution of the crime. Who was the midnight intruder who had
so alarmed Liddy and myself? Who had fallen down the clothes
chute? Was Gertrude's lover a villain or a victim? Time was to
answer all these things.
CHAPTER XIII
The Circular Staircase |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King James Bible: Syrians in the valley of salt, being eighteen thousand men.
SA2 8:14 And he put garrisons in Edom; throughout all Edom put he
garrisons, and all they of Edom became David's servants. And the LORD
preserved David whithersoever he went.
SA2 8:15 And David reigned over all Israel; and David executed judgment
and justice unto all his people.
SA2 8:16 And Joab the son of Zeruiah was over the host; and Jehoshaphat
the son of Ahilud was recorder;
SA2 8:17 And Zadok the son of Ahitub, and Ahimelech the son of
Abiathar, were the priests; and Seraiah was the scribe;
SA2 8:18 And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over both the Cherethites
King James Bible |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: forward!"
Wilbur looked over the side into the water. The ripples were
still chasing themselves away from the schooner. There was
nothing else. The stillness shut down again. There was not a
sound.
VI
A SEA MYSTERY
In spite of his best efforts at self-control, Wilbur felt a slow,
cold clutch at his heart. That sickening, uncanny lifting of the
schooner out of the glassy water, at a time when there was not
enough wind to so much as wrinkle the surface, sent a creep of
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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 Purse by Honore de Balzac: policy and the subterranean opinions of the porter's lodge.
"Ah," said she, "they were, no doubt, Mademoiselle Leseigneur and
her mother, who have lived here these four years. We do not know
exactly what these ladies do; in the morning, only till the hour
of noon, an old woman who is half deaf, and who never speaks any
more than a wall, comes in to help them; in the evening, two or
three old gentlemen, with loops of ribbon, like you, monsieur,
come to see them, and often stay very late. One of them comes in
a carriage with servants, and is said to have sixty thousand
francs a year. However, they are very quiet tenants, as you are,
monsieur; and economical! they live on nothing, and as soon as a
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