| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: reached out to the lever that directed the rays of repulsion.
The boat responded to the touch, and very gently we began
to sink toward the ground.
It was fully half an hour before we touched. Directly north
of us rose a rather lofty range of hills, toward which we
decided to make our way, since they afforded greater
opportunity for concealment from the pursuers we were
confident might stumble in this direction.
An hour later found us in the time-rounded gullies of the
hills, amid the beautiful flowering plants that abound in the
arid waste places of Barsoom. There we found numbers of
The Gods 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 Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: the ridiculous claims of Dr. Shoop's medicines, which "cure"
almost every disease; to two hair removers, one an "Indian
Secret", the other an "accidental discovery", both either fakes
or dangerous; to the lying claims of Hall's Catarrh Cure, that it
is "a positive cure for catarrh", in all its stages; to "Syrup of
Figs", which is not a fig syrup, but a preparation of senna; to
Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root, of which the principal medical
constituent is alcohol; and, finally, to Dr. Bye's Oil Cure for
cancer, a particularly cruel swindle on unfortunates suffering
from an incurable malady. All of these, with other matter, which
for the sake of decency I do not care to detail in these columns,
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