| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: This remark did not protect art and thought from being condemned once
again before the judgment-seat of trade. As may be supposed, these
speeches did not infuse much hope into Augustine, who, during the
night, gave herself up to the first meditations of love. The events of
the day were like a dream, which it was a joy to recall to her mind.
She was initiated into the fears, the hopes, the remorse, all the ebb
and flow of feeling which could not fail to toss a heart so simple and
timid as hers. What a void she perceived in this gloomy house! What a
treasure she found in her soul! To be the wife of a genius, to share
his glory! What ravages must such a vision make in the heart of a girl
brought up among such a family! What hopes must it raise in a young
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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 Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: Roach taken; and sometimes, a Dace or Chub. And in August you may
fish for them with a paste made only of the crumbs of bread, which
should be of pure fine manchet; and that paste must be so tempered
betwixt your hands till it be both soft and tough too: a very little water,
and time, and labour, and clean hands, will make it a most excellent
paste. But when you fish with it, you must have a small hook, a quick
eye, and a nimble hand, or the bait is lost, and the fish too; if one may
lose that which he never had. With this paste you may, as I said, take
both the Roach and the Dace or Dare; for they be much of a kind, in
manner of feeding, cunning, goodness, and usually in size. And
therefore take this general direction, for some other baits which may
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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 The Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs: in the ignorant and superstitious crew under his
command. By boring a hole in the partition wall
separating their campong from the inner one he had
disclosed to the horrified view of his men the fearsome
brutes harbored so close to them. The mate, of course,
had no suspicion of the true origin of these monsters,
but his knowledge of the fact that they had not been
upon the island when the Ithaca arrived and that it
would have been impossible for them to have landed and
reached the camp without having been seen by himself or
some member of his company, was sufficient evidence to
The Monster Men |
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 Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot: unless this end is accelerated by a well-planted shell from an
anti-aircraft gun. The decoy glider is generally accompanied by
one or two aeroplanes under control, which keep under the cover
of the clouds until the hostile aviators have been drawn into the
air, when they swoop down to the attack. The raiders are fully
aware that they are not likely to become the target of fire from
the ground, owing to the fact that the enemy's artillery might
hit its friends. Consequently the antagonistic airmen are left
to settle their own account. In the meantime the dummy machine
draws nearer to the ground to explode and to scatter its
death-dealing fragments of steel, iron, and bullets in all
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