| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: seemed puzzled for a suitable description.
"A sort of wail, sir," he said at last. "I never heard anything
like it before, and don't want to again."
"Like this?" inquired Smith, and he uttered a low, wailing cry,
impossible to describe. Wills perceptibly shuddered; and, indeed,
it was an eerie sound.
"The same, sir, I think," he said, "but much louder."
"That will do," said Smith, and I thought I detected a note of triumph
in his voice. "But stay! Take us through to the back of the house."
The man bowed and led the way, so that shortly we found ourselves
in a small, paved courtyard. It was a perfect summer's night,
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: dared tread upon them. And the flames, gradually gaining ground,
danced fantastically up and down the scaffolding, and covered the
edifice as with one blaze; whilst inside transom beams were
snapped asunder, rafters fell with destruction, and the fire
roaring through chapels and aisles as in a great furnace, could
be heard afar. And that which had been a Christian shrine was
now, a smoking ruin.
Raging onward in their fierce career, the flames darted towards
such buildings in the neighbourhood as had been previously
untouched, so that Paternoster Row, Newgate Street, the Old
Bailey and Ludgate Hill were soon in course of destruction. And
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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 Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: satisfied if it hadn't been for old Nat Parsons, which
was postmaster, and powerful long and slim, and kind
o' good-hearted and silly, and bald-headed, on account
of his age, and about the talkiest old cretur I ever see.
For as much as thirty years he'd been the only man in
the village that had a reputation -- I mean a reputation
for being a traveler, and of course he was mortal proud
of it, and it was reckoned that in the course of that
thirty years he had told about that journey over a
million times and enjoyed it every time. And now
comes along a boy not quite fifteen, and sets everybody
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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 At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: beneath the grinning fangs of my fierce pursuers.
And so I raced on toward the trees intending to pass
beneath that which held the man-things and take refuge
in another farther on; but the wolf-dogs were very close
behind me--so close that I had despaired of escaping them,
when one of the creatures in the tree above swung
down headforemost, his tail looped about a great limb,
and grasping me beneath my armpits swung me in safety up
among his fellows.
There they fell to examining me with the utmost excitement
and curiosity. They picked at my clothing, my hair,
At the Earth's Core |
