| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: gazed with new terror upon Tarzan. It was he who had stolen
her Tibo. Doubtless he would attempt to steal him again.
Momaya hugged the boy close to her. She was determined
to die this time rather than suffer Tibo to be taken from
her again.
Tarzan eyed them in silence. The sight of the boy clinging,
sobbing, to his mother aroused within his savage breast
a melancholy loneliness. There was none thus to cling
to Tarzan, who yearned so for the love of someone,
of something.
At last Tibo looked up, because of the quiet that had
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: As he went to bed the worthy vicar worked his brains--quite uselessly,
for he was soon at the end of them--to explain to himself the
extraordinarily discourteous conduct of Mademoiselle Gamard. The fact
was that, having all along acted logically in obeying the natural laws
of his own egotism, it was impossible that he should now perceive his
own faults towards his landlady.
Though the great things of life are simple to understand and easy to
express, the littlenesses require a vast number of details to explain
them. The foregoing events, which may be called a sort of prologue to
this bourgeois drama, in which we shall find passions as violent as
those excited by great interests, required this long introduction; 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 The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: got that Aunt Janet was not a boy, that she was quite
near being an old lady. She had overstepped the
bounds of privilege of age and sex, and an alarming
state of equality ensued. Quickly the tables were
turned. The boy became far from limp. He stiff-
ened, then bounded and rebounded like wire. He
butted, he parried, he observed all his famous tac-
tics of battle, and poor Aunt Janet sat down in the
dust, black dress, bonnet, glasses (but the glasses
were off and lost), little improving book, black silk
gloves, and all; and Johnny, hopeless, awful, irrev-
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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 St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: the honour to run after it!' rose to my lips, but I was not so ill
advised as to give it utterance. Every one should be flattered,
but boys and women without stint; and I put in the rest of the
afternoon narrating to him tales of British heroism, for which I
should not like to engage that they were all true.
'I am quite surprised,' he said at last. 'People tell you the
French are insincere. Now, I think your sincerity is beautiful. I
think you have a noble character. I admire you very much. I am
very grateful for your kindness to - to one so young,' and he
offered me his hand.
'I shall see you again soon?' said I.
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