| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Whose eyes will hardly see their occupation,
For tears in them -- and all for one old man;
For some of them will pity this old man,
Who took upon himself the work of God
Because he pitied millions. That will be
For them, I fancy, their compassionate
Best way of saying what is best in them
To say; for they can say no more than that,
And they can do no more than what the dawn
Of one more day shall give them light enough
To do. But there are many days to be,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: We moved away. All was very still now, and the lights glimmered
faintly ahead. Not a wisp of cloud brushed the moon's disk.
"Good-night, Karamaneh," I whispered softly.
CHAPTER XVIII
TO pursue further the adventure on the marshes would be a task
at once useless and thankless. In its actual and in its dramatic
significance it concluded with our parting from Karamaneh.
And in that parting I learned what Shakespeare meant
by "Sweet Sorrow."
There was a world, I learned, upon the confines of which I stood,
a world whose very existence hitherto had been unsuspected.
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: of the press, eager to pit their wits against ten years of time and
the ability of a once conspicuous man to hide from the law, packing
their suitcases for Norada.
No, he couldn't stop now. He would go on, like the others, and with
this advantage, that he was morally certain he could lay his hands
on Clark at any time. But he would have to prove his case, connect
it. Who, for instance, was the other man in the cabin? He must
have known who the boy was who lay in that rough bunk, delirious.
Must have suspected anyhow. That made him, like the Donaldsons,
accessory after the fact, and criminally liable. Small chance of
him coming out with any confession. Yet he was the connecting link.
The Breaking Point |
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 Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: The stranger answered, "There is a sign by which we all know one another,
and by which all the world may know us." (By this shall all men know that
ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.)
And Peter said, "What is that sign?"
But the stranger was silent.
"Oh, a kind of freemasonry!" said Peter, leaning on his elbow towards the
stranger, and looking up at him from under his pointed cap. "Are there any
more of you here in this country?"
"There are," said the stranger. Then he pointed with his hand into the
darkness. "There in a cave were two women. When you blew the cave up they
were left unhurt behind a fallen rock. When you took away all the grain,
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