| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: still cool. The fact is that the water never
touches the hot iron at all, provided the heat
is sufficiently intense, but assumes a slightly
elliptical shape and is supported by a cushion
of vapor. If, instead of a flat-iron, we use a
concave metal disk about the size and shape
of a watch crystal, some very interesting results
may be obtained. If the temperature of
the disk is at, or slightly above, the boiling
point, water dropped on it from a medicine
dropper will boil; but if the disk is heated to
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: till we were right on to them, when, catching sight of our Zulu advance
guard, they sprang up and ran for their rifles. Then the wagons emerged
from the bush, and they stared astonished, wondering who could be
trekking in that country.
We called to them in Dutch not to be afraid and in another minute we
were among them. While we were yet some way off my eye fell upon a
burly, white-bearded man whose figure seemed to be familiar to me, and
towards him I went, taking no heed of the others, of whom there may have
been six or seven. Soon I was sure, and advancing with outstretched
hand, said:
"Good-day, Mynheer Piet Retief. Who would have thought that we who
Marie |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: volume of the Pandects. When the old man opened it he noticed, not
without surprise, a mark left by some enclosure upon the pages, which
still kept the outline of the certificate. In the other volume he
found a sort of hollow made by the long-continued presence of a
package, which had left its traces on the two pages next to it.
"Yes, go up, Monsieur Bongrand," La Bougival was heard to say, and the
justice of the peace came into the library just as the abbe was
putting on his spectacles to read three numbers in Doctor Minoret's
hand-writing on the fly-leaf of colored paper with which the binder
had lined the cover of the volume,--figures which Ursula had just
discovered.
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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 Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: set her foot upon the broad flagged terrace, the night had come
completely; the palace front was thick with lighted windows; and
along the balustrade, the lamp on every twentieth baluster shone
clear. A few withered tracks of sunset, amber and glow-worm green,
still lingered in the western sky; and she paused once again to
watch them fading.
'And to think,' she said, 'that here am I - destiny embodied, a
norn, a fate, a providence - and have no guess upon which side I
shall declare myself! What other woman in my place would not be
prejudiced, and think herself committed? But, thank Heaven! I was
born just!' Otto's windows were bright among the rest, and she
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