| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its
general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things.
But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring
character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the
kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full
extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. The
belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with
the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions
of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the
method of collocation of these stones--in the order of their
arrangement, as well as in that of the many fungi which
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: order, and persons, of a more occasional character, and that, as
microbes of the world of crime, they are the more direct outcome
of social environment.
It is therefore another point in favour of the experimental school
that it has insisted on this sociological aspect of the problem of
criminality, by showing legislators, outside the limits of
their punitive remedies, as easy as they are illusory, how they
might, as far as circumstances will permit, apply a genuine social
remedy to crime.
After these preliminary observations, it is time that we should
take a closer view of the general statistics of the movement of
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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 Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: about the Falls, and I said to myself, "How wonderful it is to see
that vast body of water tumble down there!" Then in an instant a
bright thought flashed into my head, and I let it fly, saying, "It
would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble up there!"--and I
was just about to kill myself with laughing at it when all nature
broke loose in war and death, and I had to flee for my life.
"There," she said, with triumph, "that is just it; the Serpent
mentioned that very jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and
said it was coeval with the creation." Alas, I am indeed to blame.
Would that I were not witty; oh, would that I had never had that
radiant thought!
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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 A Heap O' Livin' by Edgar A. Guest: And plump and round and pink of cheek,
A joy to tickle and to hold,
Before he'd even learned to speak,
His gentle mother used to say:
"It is too bad that he must grow.
If I could only have my way
His baby ways we'd always know."
And then the year was turned, and he
Began to toddle round the floor
And name the things that he could see
And soil the dresses that he wore.
A Heap O' Livin' |
