| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: the mercy of God to three young children who were destitute of all
succour, and at the point of death. I found two very quickly in
this miserable state; the mother had retired to some distance that
she might not see them die, and when she saw me stop, came and told
me that they had been obliged by want to leave the town they lived
in, and were at length reduced to this dismal condition, that she
had been baptised, but that the children had not. After I had
baptised and relieved them, I continued my walk, reflecting with
wonder on the mercy of God, and about evening discovered another
infant, whose mother, evidently a Catholic, cried out to me to save
her child, or at least that if I could not preserve this uncertain
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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 Reef by Edith Wharton: confidential, her suitor surprised and delighted her by
little explosions of revolutionary sentiment. He said:
"Shall you mind, I wonder, if I tell you that you live in a
dread-fully conventional atmosphere?" and, seeing that she
manifestly did not mind: "Of course I shall say things now
and then that will horrify your dear delightful parents--I
shall shock them awfully, I warn you."
In confirmation of this warning he permitted himself an
occasional playful fling at the regular church-going of Mr.
and Mrs. Summers, at the innocuous character of the
literature in their library, and at their guileless
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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 Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: Revelation and also an elucidation of the obscure prophecy of
Ezekiel. The book contains 608 pages, handsomely bound in
embossed cloth.
Pastor Russell used to publish a two-column sermon in some
hundreds of Sunday newspapers, together with a presentment of his
features--solemn, stiff, white-whiskered, set off with a "choker"
and a black broadcloth coat. There are five million such faces in
America, but if you have an impulse to despair for your country,
remember that it produced Mark Twain and Artemus Ward, as well as
Pastor Russell and the Moody and Sankey hymn-book. I quote one
passage from "The Finished Mystery", in order that the reader may
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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 Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the river bottom but a few feet from the shore line. As the
ape-man reached the surface he saw the heads of two great
crocodiles but a short distance from him. They were making
rapidly in his direction, and with a superhuman effort the
man struck out for the overhanging branches of a near-by tree.
Nor was he a moment too soon, for scarcely had he drawn
himself to the safety of the limb than two gaping mouths
snapped venomously below him. For a few minutes Tarzan
rested in the tree that had proved the means of his salvation.
His eyes scanned the river as far down-stream as the tortuous
channel would permit, but there was no sign of the Russian
The Beasts of Tarzan |
