| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: to investigate a single spot. In their absorption, they did
not notice a small gray velvet-covered box which rolled
silently across the floor, coming to a stop at Luis Cer-
vantes' feet.
Demetrio, lying on the rug, seemed to be asleep; Cer-
vantes, who had watched everything with profound in-
difference, pulled the box closer to him with his foot, and
stooping to scratch his ankle, swiftly picked it up. Some-
thing gleamed up at him, dazzling. It was two pure-water
diamonds mounted in filigreed platinum. Hastily he thrust
them inside his coat pocket.
The Underdogs |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: king, being shipwrecked, found her washing by the shore.
Certainly I, too, was shipwrecked,' he continued, plucking at
the grass. 'There was never a more desperate castaway - to
fall from polite life, fortune, a shrine of honour, a
grateful conscience, duties willingly taken up and faithfully
discharged; and to fall to this - idleness, poverty,
inutility, remorse.' He seemed to have forgotten her
presence, but here he remembered her again. 'Nance,' said
he, 'would you have a man sit down and suffer or rise up and
strive?'
'Nay,' she said. 'I would always rather see him doing.'
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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 Chouans by Honore de Balzac: sky; instead of a thousand colors thrown through stained glass
windows, the sun could barely slide its ruddy rays and dull
reflections on altar, priest, and people. The men present were a fact,
a reality, and not a system,--it was a prayer, not a religion. But
human passions, the momentary repression of which gave harmony to the
picture, soon reappeared on this mysterious scene and gave it powerful
vitality.
As Mademoiselle de Verneuil reached the spot the reading of the gospel
was just over. She recognized in the officiating priest, not without
fear, the Abbe Gudin, and she hastily slipped behind a granite block,
drawing Francine after her. She was, however, unable to move Galope-
The Chouans |
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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: will be a track of subsoil laid bare. It will be a flayed strip
of nature. In the course of its fighting the monster may have to
turnabout. It will then halt and spin slowly round, grinding out
an arena of desolation with a diameter equal to its length. If
it has to retreat and advance again these streaks and holes of
destruction will increase and multiply. Behind the fighting line
these monsters will manoeuvre to and fro, destroying the
land for all ordinary agricultural purposes for ages to come.
The first imaginative account of the land ironclad that was ever
written concluded with the words, "They are the /reductio ad
absurdum/ of war." They are, and it is to the engineers, the
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