| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: and planted near the object to be hidden, it is painted in the
same tones as its background, it is covered with an awning
painted to look like grass or earth. I suppose it is only a
matter of development before a dummy cow or so is put up to chew
the cud on the awning.
But camouflage or no camouflage, the bulk of both the French and
British forces in the new won ground of the great offensive lay
necessarily in the open. Only the big guns and the advanced Red
Cross stations had got into pits and subterranean hiding places.
The advance has been too rapid and continuous for the armies to
make much of a toilette as they halted, and the destruction and
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: the house, with a little water-cart. People living in England, in almost
perpetual mildness and moisture, don't really know what a drought is.
If they have some weeks of cloudless weather, it is generally preceded
and followed by good rains; but we have perhaps an hour's shower every week,
and then comes a month or six weeks' drought. The soil is very light,
and dries so quickly that, after the heaviest thunder-shower, I can walk
over any of my paths in my thin shoes; and to keep the garden even moderately
damp it should pour with rain regularly every day for three hours.
My only means of getting water is <181> to go to the pump near the house,
or to the little stream that forms my eastern boundary, and the little
stream dries up too unless there has been rain, and is at the best of times
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: have offended Him."
'"What is God? - I cannot see Him or hear Him. - God is only an
idea."
'"God is Infinite Wisdom, and Power, and Goodness - and LOVE; but
if this idea is too vast for your human faculties - if your mind
loses itself in its overwhelming infinitude, fix it on Him who
condescended to take our nature upon Him, who was raised to heaven
even in His glorified human body, in whom the fulness of the
Godhead shines."
'But he only shook his head and sighed. Then, in another paroxysm
of shuddering horror, he tightened his grasp on my hand and arm,
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
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 Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: last spring, when mother was not well - she had taken grandfather
to the Riviera, and it always uses her up - we went to Virginia Hot
Springs, and we met them there, the brother, too, this time. His
name was Sullivan, Harry Pinckney Sullivan."
"I know. Go on."
"Mother had a nurse, and I was alone a great deal, and they were
very kind to me. I - I saw a lot of them. The brother rather
attracted me, partly - partly because he did not make love to me.
He even seemed to avoid me, and I was piqued. I had been spoiled,
I suppose. Most of the other men I knew had - had - "
"I know that, too," I said bitterly, and moved away from her a
The Man in Lower Ten |
