| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: From the spelling, I judge that the person
who selected this lady's title must have been
more familiar with the City Directory than
with the Scriptures.
In Edward J. Wood's Giants and Dwarfs,
London, 1868, I find the following:
A newspaper of December 19th, 1751,
announces as follows:
At the new theatre in the Haymarket,
this day, will be performed a concert of
musick, in two acts. Boxes 3s., pit 2s.,
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: During these ceremonies Raja and Ranee had stood
beside Dian and me. Their bellies had been well filled,
but still they had difficulty in permitting so much
edible humanity to pass unchallenged. It was a good
education for them though, and never after did they
find it difficult to associate with the human race with-
out arousing their appetites.
After the ceremonies were over we had a chance
to talk with Perry and Ja. The former told me that
Ghak, king of Sari, had sent my letter and map to him
by a runner, and that he and Ja had at once decided
Pellucidar |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: historic soul, with her sorrows and the remoteness of a daily life
busied with rustic simplicities and the scents of primeval herbs.
I was not incompetent at herb-gathering, and after a while,
when I had sat long enough waking myself to new thoughts, and
reading a page of remembrance with new pleasure, I gathered some
bunches, as I was bound to do, and at last we met again higher up
the shore, in the plain every-day world we had left behind when we
went down to the penny-royal plot. As we walked together along the
high edge of the field we saw a hundred sails about the bay and
farther seaward; it was mid-afternoon or after, and the day was
coming to an end.
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: a glimpse. A generation or two passed by, and then the peoples of
Europe began to suspect that they were no longer children, but come
to manhood; and determined (after the example of Britain and
America) to assume the rights and duties of manhood, at whatever
risk of excesses or mistakes: and then "Telemaque" was relegated--
half unjustly--as the slavish and childish dream of a past age, into
the schoolroom, where it still remains.
But there is a defect in "Telemaque" which is perhaps deeper still.
No woman in it exercises influence over man, except for evil.
Minerva, the guiding and inspiring spirit, assumes of course, as
Mentor, a male form; but her speech and thought is essentially
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