| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: community could know, and militating more against the professional
emoluments and usefulness of the great constitutional office he had
the honour to hold, than any adverse circumstances that could
present themselves to his imagination.
The enrolment being completed, and Hugh having been informed by
Gashford, in his peculiar manner, of the peaceful and strictly
lawful objects contemplated by the body to which he now belonged--
during which recital Mr Dennis nudged him very much with his elbow,
and made divers remarkable faces--the secretary gave them both to
understand that he desired to be alone. Therefore they took their
leaves without delay, and came out of the house together.
Barnaby Rudge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: another craft. Down the coast they steamed toward the beach
where Billings had made his crossing in the hydro-aeroplane and
just at dusk the lookout announced a light dead ahead. It proved
to be aboard the Toreador, and a half-hour later there was
such a reunion on the deck of the trig little yacht as no one
there had ever dreamed might be possible. Of the Allies there
were only Tippet and James to be mourned, and no one mourned any
of the Germans dead nor Benson, the traitor, whose ugly story was
first told in Bowen Tyler's manuscript.
Tyler and the rescue party had but just reached the yacht
that afternoon. They had heard, faintly, the signal shots fired
Out of Time's Abyss |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: and also in the thought of Billy's and Bertie's eleventh-hour
scholarship, "Even with another day," he told himself, "those young men
could not have got fifty per cent," In those times this was the passing
mark. To-day I believe you get an A, or a B, or some other letter
denoting your rank. In due time Oscar turned out his gas and got into
his bed ; and the clocks of Massachusetts struck midnight.
Mrs. Diggs of the Bird-in-Hand had retired at eleven, furious with rage,
but firm in dignity in spite of a sudden misadventure. Her hair, being
the subject of a sporting event, had remained steadily fixed in Billy's
mind,--steadily fixed throughout an entertainment which began at an
early hour to assume the features of a celebration. One silver-fizz
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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 White Moll by Frank L. Packard: his cunning to keep the evidence of other crimes from piling up
against him and damning whatever meager chances he might have to
escape the penalty for Deemer's murder, she meant - yes, even if
she pretended to compound a felony with him - to force or to inveigle
from him, it mattered little which, a confession of the authorship
and details of the scheme to rob Skarbolov that night when she,
Rhoda Gray, in answer to a dying woman's pleading, had tried to
forestall the plan, and had been caught, apparently, in the very act
of committing the robbery herself! With that confession in her
possession, with the identity of the unknown woman who had died in
the hospital that night established, her own story would be believed.
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