| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: it would be better if we all should die. I only seem to have
brought you into the world to suffer sorrow and misery."
Unable longer to control her grief, she burst into violent
weeping, which served to increase the amusement of the joiner's
wife, who had not forgotten the morning's squabble, and she
laughed loudly at her neighbor's woe.
CHAPTER III.
About half an hour had passed when the youngest child began to
cry and Akulina arose to feed it. She had by this time ceased to
weep, and after feeding the infant she again fell into her old
The Kreutzer Sonata |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: What all forms have in common is democracy
and the abolition, virtual or complete, of the present
capitalistic system. The distinction between Socialists,
Anarchists and Syndicalists turns largely upon
the kind of democracy which they desire. Orthodox
Socialists are content with parliamentary democracy
in the sphere of government, holding that the evils
apparent in this form of constitution at present
would disappear with the disappearance of capitalism.
Anarchists and Syndicalists, on the other
hand, object to the whole parliamentary machinery,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: shores. The sky of the westerly weather is full of flying clouds,
of great big white clouds coming thicker and thicker till they seem
to stand welded into a solid canopy, upon whose gray face the lower
wrack of the gale, thin, black and angry-looking, flies past with
vertiginous speed. Denser and denser grows this dome of vapours,
descending lower and lower upon the sea, narrowing the horizon
around the ship. And the characteristic aspect of westerly
weather, the thick, gray, smoky and sinister tone sets in,
circumscribing the view of the men, drenching their bodies,
oppressing their souls, taking their breath away with booming
gusts, deafening, blinding, driving, rushing them onwards in a
The Mirror of the Sea |
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 Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: exposed as a forger and a thief."
"I never wrote such a letter!" shouted McIntyre, deeply incensed.
"No, it was a clever plan," acknowledged Sylvester. "On one of my
trips to your house, Colonel McIntyre, I secured wax impressions of
your front door lock. I went to your house Monday night and put
the letter among your papers just before Turnbull was admitted by
your fool of a butler."
"And you gave Jimmie Turnbull a dose of poison - charged Kent, but
Sylvester, his lips gone dry, raised his manacled hands in protest.
"I did not poison him," he cried. "I waited just to see if Turnbull
got the letter and to find out what he'd do with the securities,
The Red Seal |
