| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis: dead in a western graveyard, ladies and gentlemen,
and she is here, a useless and an idle vanity without
the mind that made her go!"
Well, he went on and he told a funny story about
Alonzo, which I don't believe they ever was no
Alonzo Ackerman, and a lot of 'em laughed; and
he told a pitiful story, and they got sollum agin,
and then another funny story. Well, he had 'em
listening, and purty soon most of the crowd is
feeling in a good humour toward him, and one
feller yells out:
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: remains of the reptile which had first led us into the cavern.
Its hide was half an inch thick and tough as the toughest
leather. There was no difficulty in loosening it, for by that time
the flesh was so decayed and sunken that it literally fell off.
That job was the worst of all.
Time and again, after cutting away with the points of our
spears--our only tools--until we could stand it no longer, we
staggered off to the stream like drunken men, sick and faint with
the sight and smell of the mess.
But that, too, came to an end, and finally we marched off to
the camp, which we had removed a half-mile upstream, dragging after
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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 De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: no one deserved anything. Or perhaps they were a different kind of
people. Christ had no patience with the dull lifeless mechanical
systems that treat people as if they were things, and so treat
everybody alike: for him there were no laws: there were
exceptions merely, as if anybody, or anything, for that matter, was
like aught else in the world!
That which is the very keynote of romantic art was to him the
proper basis of natural life. He saw no other basis. And when
they brought him one, taken in the very act of sin and showed him
her sentence written in the law, and asked him what was to be done,
he wrote with his finger on the ground as though he did not hear
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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 Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: had not handsome tapestries, the gift of the lady of the manor,
covered the walls. Fine old pictures hung here and there above the
altars, and handsome stained glass windows broke the light that fell
into the high vaulted interior. There were three great altars in
the church, all of them richly decorated. The main altar stood
isolated in the choir. In the open space behind it was the
entrance to the crypt, now veiled in a mysterious twilight. Heavy
silver candlesticks, three on a side, stood on the altar. The pale
gold of the tabernacle door gleamed between them.
Muller walked through the silent church, in which even his light
steps resounded uncannily. He looked into each of the pews, into
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