| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: all that their worships shall undertake to write or say to the contrary,--I
am determined shall be the case.--I need not tell your worship, that all
this is spoke in confidence.
Chapter 1.XIV.
Upon looking into my mother's marriage settlement, in order to satisfy
myself and reader in a point necessary to be cleared up, before we could
proceed any farther in this history;--I had the good fortune to pop upon
the very thing I wanted before I had read a day and a half straight
forwards,--it might have taken me up a month;--which shews plainly, that
when a man sits down to write a history,--tho' it be but the history of
Jack Hickathrift or Tom Thumb, he knows no more than his heels what lets
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: was a gigantic inadequacy. Each worked for himself, and the
result was chaos. In this richest of diggings it cost out by
their feverish, unthinking methods another dollar was left
hopelessly in the earth. Given another year, and most of the
claims would be worked out, and the sum of the gold taken out
would no more than equal what was left behind.
Organization was what was needed, he decided; and his quick
imagination sketched Eldorado Creek, from mouth to source, and
from mountain top to mountain top, in the hands of one capable
management. Even steam-thawing, as yet untried, but bound to
come, he saw would be a makeshift. What should be done was to
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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 Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: has. Forty at least there are, and they do a fine lot of knocking
about the town and drinking. In particular, Staff-Captain Potsieluev
is a SPLENDID fellow! You should just see his moustache! Why, he
calls good claret 'trash'! 'Bring me some of the usual trash,' is his
way of ordering it. And Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov, too! He is as
delightful as the other man. In fact, I may say that every one of the
lot is a rake. I spent my whole time with them, and you can imagine
that Ponomarev, the wine merchant, did a fine trade indeed! All the
same, he is a rascal, you know, and ought not to be dealt with, for he
puts all sorts of rubbish into his liquor--Indian wood and burnt cork
and elderberry juice, the villain! Nevertheless, get him to produce a
Dead Souls |
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 Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: strain, the correspondent signs himself
Philopyraphagus Ashburniensis.
In his History of Inventions, Vol. III, page
272, 1817 edition, Beckmann thus describes the
process:
The deception of breathing out flames,
which at present excites, in a particular
manner, the astonishment of the ignorant,
is very ancient. When the slaves in Sicily,
about a century and a half before our era,
made a formidable insurrection, and
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
