| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: pockets were finally emptied, there was still no identification, but
instead, on the table before them, his interrogators saw the
following objects, namely, viz., and to wit: the bottle cap, the
chicken brains, the horse manure, a piece of grimy string, a cigar
butt, three pieces of chewed and flattened gum, a wing nut with
stripped threads, a rusty nail (bent in two places), part of a candy
wrapper, some rat pills (eleven of them), half a marble, and a
common pebble.
After a moment or two of reflective silence, the mayor made bold to
speak (seeing the constable in a reverie), and asked gently and
softly, "Where did you get all these, uh, items?"
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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 Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: have heard our own description put in practice.
'All night | the dread | less an | gel un | pursued,' (2)
goes the schoolboy; but though we close our ears, we cling to
our definition, in spite of its proved and naked
insufficiency. Mr. Jenkin was not so easily pleased, and
readily discovered that the heroic line consists of four
groups, or, if you prefer the phrase, contains four pauses:
'All night | the dreadless | angel | unpursued.'
Four groups, each practically uttered as one word: the
first, in this case, an iamb; the second, an amphibrachys;
the third, a trochee; and the fourth, an amphimacer; and yet
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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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: sharpened to hew it out!--'Tis a piteous delay!--Was not the great Julius
Scaliger within an ace of never getting his tools sharpened at all?--Forty-
four years old was he before he could manage his Greek;--and Peter
Damianus, lord bishop of Ostia, as all the world knows, could not so much
as read, when he was of man's estate.--And Baldus himself, as eminent as he
turned out after, entered upon the law so late in life, that every body
imagined he intended to be an advocate in the other world: no wonder, when
Eudamidas, the son of Archidamas, heard Xenocrates at seventy-five
disputing about wisdom, that he asked gravely,--If the old man be yet
disputing and enquiring concerning wisdom,--what time will he have to make
use of it?
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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 Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: a viridescence which hitherto I had supposed possible only in the eye
of the cat--and the film intermittently clouded their brightness--
but I can speak of them no more.
I had never supposed, prior to meeting Dr. Fu-Manchu, that so intense
a force of malignancy could radiate--from any human being. He spoke.
His English was perfect, though at times his words were oddly chosen;
his delivery alternately was guttural and sibilant.
"Mr. Smith and Dr. Petrie, your interference with my plans has gone too far.
I have seriously turned my attention to you."
He displayed his teeth, small and evenly separated,
but discolored in a way that was familiar to me.
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
