| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: on the inside."
The commissioner had his hat in his hand when the colleague who was
to relieve him appeared. "Good and cold out to-day!" was the
latter's greeting. Horn answered with an ironical: "Then I suppose
you'll be glad if I relieve you of this case. But I assure you I
wouldn't do it if it wasn't Fellner. Good-bye. Oh, and one thing
more. Please send a physician at once to Fellner's house, No. 7
Field Street."
Horn opened the door and passed on into the adjoining room,
accompanied by Johann. The commissioner halted a moment as his
eyes fell upon a little man who sat in the corner reading a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: of my money,--just for all the world like the rats who come smelling
after the master's cheese and paying court to you? I see it all; I've
got a shrewd eye, though I am as big as a steeple. Well, mamz'elle, it
pleases me, but it isn't love."
X
Two months went by. This domestic life, once so monotonous, was now
quickened with the intense interest of a secret that bound these women
intimately together. For them Charles lived and moved beneath the grim
gray rafters of the hall. Night and morning Eugenie opened the
dressing-case and gazed at the portrait of her aunt. One Sunday
morning her mother surprised her as she stood absorbed in finding her
Eugenie Grandet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: captured that torn copy of Lloyd's, and read those convincingly realistic
advertisements about the Cutaway bicycle, and the gentleman of private
means, and the lady in distress who was selling those "forks and spoons."
There was no doubt they existed surely enough, and, said I, "This is your
world, and you are Bedford, and you are going back to live among things
like that for all the rest of your life." But the doubts within me could
still argue: "It is not you that is reading, it is Bedford, but you are
not Bedford, you know. That's just where the mistake comes in."
"Confound it!" I cried; "and if I am not Bedford, what am I?"
But in that direction no light was forthcoming, though the strangest
fancies came drifting into my brain, queer remote suspicions, like shadows
The First Men In The Moon |
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 Timaeus by Plato: on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in
our part of the world--about Phoroneus, who is called 'the first man,' and
about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha;
and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning up the
dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he was
speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great
age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children,
and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he
meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is
no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science
which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and
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