| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: last batch of cuts make their subjects look as if afflicted
with the German measles; he arbitrates any row that the
newspaper may have with such dignitaries as the mayor or the
chief of police; he manages boxing shows; he skims about in a
smart little roadster; he edits the best sporting page in
the city; and at four o'clock of an afternoon he likes to
send around the corner for a chunk of devil's food cake
with butter filling from the Woman's Exchange. Blackie
never went to school to speak of. He doesn't know was
from were. But he can "see" a story quicker, and farther
and clearer than any newspaper man I ever knew--excepting
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: make money for the household. Such legislation has always been
furiously resisted by the parents, even when the horrors of factory
slavery were at their worst; and the extension of such legislation at
present would be impossible if it were not that the parents affected
by it cannot control a majority of votes in Parliament. In domestic
life a great deal of service is done by children, the girls acting as
nursemaids and general servants, and the lads as errand boys. In the
country both boys and girls do a substantial share of farm labor.
This is why it is necessary to coerce poor parents to send their
children to school, though in the relatively small class which keeps
plenty of servants it is impossible to induce parents to keep their
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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 Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: and the bitterer the better, frightfulness was your way to
victory over every enemy. But these people had found a better
way. Here were Dutch and English side by side; sixteen years ago
they had been at war together and now they wore the same uniform
and rode together, and laughed at him for a queer fellow because
he was for spitting at them and defying them, and folding his
arms and looking level at the executioners' rifles. There were to
be no executioners' rifles.... If it was so with Dutch and
English, why shouldn't it be so presently with French and
Germans? Why someday shouldn't French, German, Dutch and English,
Russian and Pole, ride together under this new star of mankind,
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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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: To kill them before he knew where Thuvia was hid was
simply to leave her to death at the hands of others;
for sooner or later Nutus would learn her whereabouts,
and Nutus, Jeddak of Dusar, could not afford to let her live.
Turjun put himself in the path of Vas Kor that he
might not be overlooked. The noble aroused the men
sleeping upon the deck, but always before him the
strange panthan whom he had recruited that same day
found means for keeping himself to the fore.
Vas Kor turned to his lieutenant, giving instruction
for the bringing of the Kalksus to Dusar, and the
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
