| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: Stone moved nearer. "Like that?" he questioned, pointing to the
still figure. "Explain yourself, Rochester. Did Turnbull expect
to die here in this manner?"
"No - no - certainly not." The lawyer moistened his dry lips. "But
when a man has angina pectoris he knows the end may come at any
moment and in any place. Turnbull made no secret of suffering from
that disease." Rochester turned toward Clymer. "You knew it."
Benjamin Clymer, who had been gazing alternately at the dead man
and vaguely about the room, looked startled at the abrupt question.
"I knew Turnbull had bad attacks of the heart; we all knew it at
the bank," he stated. "But I understood the disease had responded
The Red Seal |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: I've kent at braid mid-day sae mirk
Ye'd seen white weegs an' faces lurk
Like ghaists frae Hell,
But whether Christian ghaist or Turk
Deil ane could tell.
The three fires lunted in the gloom,
The wind blew like the blast o' doom,
The rain upo' the roof abune
Played Peter Dick -
Ye wad nae'd licht enough i' the room
Your teeth to pick!
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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 Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: nothing, and held himself ready to meet all events with his capital
turned into gold. At this period the custom-house lines were no longer
maintained. Napoleon could not do without his thirty thousand custom-
house officers for service in the field. Cotton, then introduced
through a thousand loopholes, slipped into the markets of France. No
one can imagine how sly and how alert cotton had become at this epoch,
nor with what eagerness the English laid hold of a country where
cotton stockings sold for six francs a pair, and cambric shirts were
objects of luxury.
Manufacturers from the second class, the principal workmen, reckoning
on the genius of Napoleon, had bought up the cottons that came from
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: expostulated with me the other way, thus: "Well, you are in a
desolate condition, it is true; but, pray remember, where are the
rest of you? Did not you come, eleven of you in the boat? Where
are the ten? Why were they not saved, and you lost? Why were you
singled out? Is it better to be here or there?" And then I
pointed to the sea. All evils are to be considered with the good
that is in them, and with what worse attends them.
Then it occurred to me again, how well I was furnished for my
subsistence, and what would have been my case if it had not
happened (which was a hundred thousand to one) that the ship
floated from the place where she first struck, and was driven so
Robinson Crusoe |
