| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: Duane, I was told to hurry, and here I'm selfishly using time."
"Go, then--and leave me. You mustn't unnerve me now, when
there's a desperate game to finish."
"Need it be desperate?" she whispered, coming close to him.
"Yes; it can't be else."
MacNelly had sent her to weaken him; of that Duane was sure.
And he felt that she had wanted to come. Her eyes were dark,
strained, beautiful, and they shed a light upon Duane he had
never seen before.
"You're going to take some mad risk," she said. "Let me
persuade you not to. You said--you cared for me--and I--oh,
The Lone Star Ranger |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: "Amontillado!"
"And I must satisfy them."
"Amontillado!"
"As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one
has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me--"
"Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry."
"And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for
your own."
"Come, let us go."
"Whither?"
"To your vaults."
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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 Human Drift by Jack London: agricultural stage gave support to a still larger population; and,
to-day, with the increased food-getting efficiency of a machine
civilisation, an even larger population is made possible. Nor is
this theoretical. The population is here, a billion and three
quarters of men, women, and children, and this vast population is
increasing on itself by leaps and bounds.
A heavy European drift to the New World has gone on and is going
on; yet Europe, whose population a century ago was 170,000,000,
has to-day 500,000,000. At this rate of increase, provided that
subsistence is not overtaken, a century from now the population of
Europe will be 1,500,000,000. And be it noted of the present rate
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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 Charmides by Plato: ancient, from itself only, comparing the same author with himself and with
his contemporaries, and with the general state of thought and feeling
prevalent in his age. Afterwards comes the remoter light which they cast
on one another. We begin to feel that the ancients had the same thoughts
as ourselves, the same difficulties which characterize all periods of
transition, almost the same opposition between science and religion.
Although we cannot maintain that ancient and modern philosophy are one and
continuous (as has been affirmed with more truth respecting ancient and
modern history), for they are separated by an interval of a thousand years,
yet they seem to recur in a sort of cycle, and we are surprised to find
that the new is ever old, and that the teaching of the past has still a
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