| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: freight another cargo of coal until they allowed it. The village
powers, they admitted, could not be boycotted, but they would do
everything they could to make it uncomfortable for the board if it
awarded the contract to Grogan. Neither would they forget the
trustees at the next election. As to that "smart Alec" of a
horse-doctor, they knew how to fix him. Suppose it had struck
nine and the polls had closed, what right had he to keep McGaw
from handing in his other bid? (Both were higher than Tom's.
This fact, however, McGaw had never mentioned.)
Around the tenements the interest was no less marked. Mr.
Moriarty had sent the news of Tom's success ringing through
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: full of sudden hope that she might get the two hundred thousand francs
without degrading herself:
"Buy a soul--you were once ready to buy virtue!" she went on, with a
frenzied gaze. "Trust to my honesty as a woman, to my honor, of which
you know the worth! Be my friend! Save a whole family from ruin,
shame, despair; keep it from falling into a bog where the quicksands
are mingled with blood! Oh! ask for no explanations," she exclaimed,
at a movement on Crevel's part, who was about to speak. "Above all, do
not say to me, 'I told you so!' like a friend who is glad at a
misfortune. Come now, yield to her whom you used to love, to the woman
whose humiliation at your feet is perhaps the crowning moment of her
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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 A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: step, for he had said, Remain. He looked and saw her again--he
saw her for weeks and months. He withdrew his eyes from the
scene, swept his hand across them, as if to brush away the sight,
breathed a low groan, and went on.
Chapter XXXV
'And wilt thou leave me thus?--say nay--say nay!'
The scene shifts to Knight's chambers in Bede's Inn. It was late
in the evening of the day following his departure from Endelstow.
A drizzling rain descended upon London, forming a humid and dreary
halo over every well-lighted street. The rain had not yet been
prevalent long enough to give to rapid vehicles that clear and
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
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 Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot: Should such a missile strike, say, the motor of an aeroplane, or
even the hull of the craft itself, the latter would be
practically destroyed. But all things considered, it is
concluded that more successful results are likely to be achieved
by the armour-piercing bullet striking the mechanism than by an
explosive projectile.
The Krupp company fully reahsed the difficulties pertaining to
the projectile problem in attacks upon aerial craft. So far as
dirigibles are concerned shrapnel is practically useless,
inasmuch as even should the bag be riddled by the flying
fragments, little effective damage would be wrought--the craft
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