| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: "I shouldn't be much the better for that, you see," says I. "For
all I can tell, it might have been whole empty yesterday."
"That's so," says he, with a bit of a laugh.
"By-the-bye," I said, "what sort of a party is that priest? Seems
rather a friendly sort."
At this Case laughed right out loud. "Ah!" says he, "I see what
ails you now. Galuchet's been at you." - FATHER GALOSHES was the
name he went by most, but Case always gave it the French quirk,
which was another reason we had for thinking him above the common.
"Yes, I have seen him," I says. "I made out he didn't think much
of your Captain Randall."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: fishing-rods, from the four-ounce whisp of the brook-trout up to
the rigid eighteen-ounce lance of the king-salmon and sea-bass;
showcases of wicked revolvers, swelling by calibres into the
thirty-eight and forty-four man-killers of the plainsmen and
Arizona cavalry; hunting knives and dirks, and the slender steel
whips of the fencers; files of Winchesters, sleeping quietly in
their racks, waiting patiently for the signal to speak the one
grim word they knew; swarms of artificial flies of every
conceivable shade, brown, gray, black, gray-brown, gray-black,
with here and there a brisk vermilion note; coils of line, from
the thickness of a pencil, spun to hold the sullen plunges of a
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: rain, as they hurried after me.
`In a moment I was clutched by several hands, and there was no
mistaking that they were trying to haul me back. I struck
another light, and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can
scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman they looked--those pale,
chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes!--as they
stared in their blindness and bewilderment. But I did not stay to
look, I promise you: I retreated again, and when my second match
had ended, I struck my third. It had almost burned through when
I reached the opening into the shaft. I lay down on the edge,
for the throb of the great pump below made me giddy. Then I felt
The Time Machine |
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 Mother by Owen Wister: "But she interrupted me earnestly 'I know about those inventions,
Richard, for I have procured the prospectuses. And I wish that I could
have told you my own feeling about them before you bought any of the
stock.'"
"'I do not think you can fully have taken it in, Ethel.'"
"'I trust that it may not have fully taken you in,' she replied. 'Have
you noticed what those stocks are selling for at present?'"
"Of course I had noticed this. I had paid 63 for Standard Egg, and it was
now 48, while 11 was the price of Patent Pasteurized Feeder, for which I
had paid 20. But this, Mr. Beverly assured me, was a normal and even
healthy course for a new stock. 'Had they gone up too soon and too high,'
|
