| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: scrambling out on the bank, they continued their road.
Three days later they were not far from the goal of their journey. The
air suddenly grew colder: they could feel the vicinity of the Dnieper.
And there it gleamed afar, distinguishable on the horizon as a dark
band. It sent forth cold waves, spreading nearer, nearer, and finally
seeming to embrace half the entire surface of the earth. This was that
section of its course where the river, hitherto confined by the
rapids, finally makes its own away and, roaring like the sea, rushes
on at will; where the islands, flung into its midst, have pressed it
farther from their shores, and its waves have spread widely over the
earth, encountering neither cliffs nor hills. The Cossacks, alighting
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: brought with them in the carriage. Five minutes elapsed,
during which Franz saw the shepherd going along a narrow
path that led over the irregular and broken surface of the
Campagna; and finally he disappeared in the midst of the
tall red herbage, which seemed like the bristling mane of an
enormous lion. "Now," said the count, "let us follow him."
Franz and the count in their turn then advanced along the
same path, which, at the distance of a hundred paces, led
them over a declivity to the bottom of a small valley. They
then perceived two men conversing in the obscurity. "Ought
we to go on?" asked Franz of the count; "or shall we wait
The Count of Monte Cristo |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The man leaped to his feet. Not again was he to be
cheated as the man had cheated him. He sprang forward
at a reckless pace to the spot at which he last had
seen the great, skulking brute.
Before him loomed the sheer cliff, its face unbroken
by any aperture into which the huge banth might have
wormed its great carcass. Beside him was a small, flat
boulder, not larger than the deck of a ten-man flier, nor
standing to a greater height than twice his own stature.
Perhaps the banth was in hiding behind this? The brute
might have discovered the man upon his trail, and even
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
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 Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: authority, but in my judgment (as more elaborately set forth and
enforced in my work entitled _Hereditary Emotions_ -- lib. II, c. XI)
the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a
theory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown. I
have not a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspired
by the guillotine during the period of that instrument's activity.
GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the
settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left
unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to
the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it
was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion
The Devil's Dictionary |
