| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: the emphasis of sex was startling. He had been accustomed to her
only in trim tailor suits and shirtwaists, or in riding costume
of velvet corduroy, and he was not prepared for this new
revelation. She seemed so much softer, so much more pliant, and
tender, and lissome. She was a part of this atmosphere of
quietude and beauty. She fitted into it just as she had fitted
in with the sober office furnishings.
"Won't you sit down?" she repeated.
He felt like an animal long denied food. His hunger for her
welled up in him, and he proceeded to "wolf" the dainty morsel
before him. Here was no patience, no diplomacy. The
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: west, towards the back part of the Spaniards; and every plantation
had a great addition of land to take in, if they found occasion, so
that they need not jostle one another for want of room. All the
east end of the island was left uninhabited, that if any of the
savages should come on shore there only for their customary
barbarities, they might come and go; if they disturbed nobody,
nobody would disturb them: and no doubt but they were often
ashore, and went away again; for I never heard that the planters
were ever attacked or disturbed any more.
CHAPTER VIII - SAILS FROM THE ISLAND FOR THE BRAZILS
IT now came into my thoughts that I had hinted to my friend the
Robinson Crusoe |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: For a few minutes Billy Byrne played with his man, hitting
him when and where he would. He fought, crouching, much
as Jeffries used to fight, and in his size and strength was much
that reminded Cassidy of the fallen idol that in his heart of
hearts he still worshiped.
And then, like a panther, the mucker sprang in with a
vicious left hook to the jaw, followed, with lightning rapidity,
by a right upper cut to the chin that lifted Battling Dago Pete
a foot from the floor to drop him, unconscious, against the
foot of the further wall.
It was a clean knock-out, and when Cassidy and Hurricane
The Mucker |
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 Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: screened away the light from my eyes with my hand. . . . There
was a stillness.
"How are you to blame?" my wife said after a long silence,
looking at me with red eyes that gleamed with tears. "You are
very well educated and very well bred, very honest, just, and
high-principled, but in you the effect of all that is that
wherever you go you bring suffocation, oppression, something
insulting and humiliating to the utmost degree. You have a
straightforward way of looking at things, and so you hate the
whole world. You hate those who have faith, because faith is an
expression of ignorance and lack of culture, and at the same time
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