| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: With every pressure of my knee, how the floor creaked!
and every time I chanced to rake against any article,
it seemed to give out thirty-five or thirty-six times
more noise than it would have done in the daytime.
In those cases I always stopped and held my breath till I
was sure Harris had not awakened--then I crept along again.
I moved on and on, but I could not find the sock;
I could not seem to find anything but furniture.
I could not remember that there was much furniture
in the room when I went to bed, but the place was alive
with it now --especially chairs--chairs everywhere--
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: other fellow did it, this house will be a nice little hell to
live in. And if anybody"--here he glared around--"if anybody has
got funny and is hiding those jewels, I want to say that he'd
better speak up now. Later, it won't be so easy for him. It's a
mighty poor joke."
But nobody spoke.
Chapter VII. WE MAKE AN OMELET
It was Betty Mercer who said she was hungry, and got us switched
from the delicate subject of which was the thief to the quite as
pressing subject of which was to be cook. Aunt Selina had slept
quietly through the whole thing--we learned afterward that she
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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 The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: order to be sure that nobody could either see or hear him,
and opening his ragged vest, badly held together by a
leather strap, he began to rip the upper part of his
doublet, from which he drew a letter.
Aramis uttered a cry of joy at the sight of the seal, kissed
the superscription with an almost religious respect, and
opened the epistle, which contained what follows:
"My Friend, it is the will of fate that we should be still
for some time separated; but the delightful days of youth
are not lost beyond return. Perform your duty in camp; I
will do mine elsewhere. Accept that which the bearer brings
The Three Musketeers |
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 Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: towards four o'clock. And then came a terrible thing. In places
the road became hard, in places were the crowded indentations of
a recent flock of sheep, and at last in the throat of the town
cobbles and the stony streets branching east, west, north, and
south, at a stone cross under the shadow of the cathedral the
tracks vanished. "O Cricky!" said Mr. Hoopdriver, dismounting in
dismay and standing agape. "Dropped anything?" said an inhabitant
at the kerb. "Yes," said Mr. Hoopdriver, "I've lost the spoor,"
and walked upon his way, leaving the inhabitant marvelling what
part of a bicycle a spoor might be. Mr. Hoopdriver, abandoning
tracking, began asking people if they had seen a Young Lady in
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