| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: closely guarded.
As his eyes met those of his fellow-captive a smile
lit the other's face, and: "Kaor, red man!" burst from
his lips. It was Kar Komak, the bowman.
"Kaor!" cried Carthoris, in response. "How came you
here, and what befell the princess?"
"Red men like yourself descended in mighty ships that
sailed the air, even as the great ships of my distant
day sailed the five seas," replied Kar Komak. "They
fought with the green men of Torquas. They slew
Komal, god of Lothar. I thought they were your friends,
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: and two altar candles, I saw distinctly that this woman was fresh from
the graveyard. She had no hair. I turned to fly. She raised her
fleshless arm and encircled me with a band of iron set with spikes,
and as she raised it a cry went up all about us, the cry of millions
of voices--the shouting of the dead!
"It is my purpose to make thee happy for ever," she said. "Thou art my
son."
We were sitting before the hearth, the ashes lay cold upon it; the old
shrunken woman grasped my hand so tightly in hers that I could not
choose but stay. I looked fixedly at her, striving to read the story
of her life from the things among which she was crouching. Had she
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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 Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: act.
Juste, whom no one ever sought, and who never sought any one, was, at
five-and-twenty, a great politician, a man with a wonderful aptitude
for apprehending the correlation between remote history and the facts
of the present and of the future. In 1831, he told me exactly what
would and did happen--the murders, the conspiracies, the ascendency of
the Jews, the difficulty of doing anything in France, the scarcity of
talent in the higher circles, and the abundance of intellect in the
lowest ranks, where the finest courage is smothered under cigar ashes.
What was to become of him? His parents wished him to be a doctor. But
if he were a doctor, must he not wait twenty years for a practice? You
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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 Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: national, liberal, constitutional, and patriotic feeling to use none
but French woods in the house; so the floor in the dining-room is
chestnut, the sideboards, tables, and chairs, of the same. White
calico window-curtains, with red borders, are held back by vulgar red
straps; these magnificent draperies run on wooden curtain rods ending
in brass lion's-paws. Above one of the sideboards hangs a dial
suspended by a sort of napkin in gilded bronze,--an idea that seemed
to please the Rogrons hugely. They tried to make me admire the
invention; all I could manage to say was that if it was ever proper to
wrap a napkin round a dial it was certainly in a dining-room. On the
sideboard were two huge lamps like those on the counter of a
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