| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: But to my astonishment I discovered that with death staring
him in the face Abner Perry was transformed into a new being.
From his lips there flowed--not prayer--but a clear and limpid
stream of undiluted profanity, and it was all directed
at that quietly stubborn piece of unyielding mechanism.
"I should think, Perry," I chided, "that a man of your
professed religiousness would rather be at his prayers
than cursing in the presence of imminent death."
"Death!" he cried. "Death is it that appalls you?
That is nothing by comparison with the loss the world
must suffer. Why, David within this iron cylinder we have
At the Earth's Core |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: satisfied with what he saw in the face of his foe.
"All right. It's a deal," he agreed, and sank weakly back to the
couch.
There are men whose looks are a profanation to any good woman.
Ned Bannister, of the Shoshones, was one of them. He looked at
his cousin, and his ribald eyes coasted back to bold scrutiny of
this young woman's charming, buoyant youth. There was Something
in his face that sent a flush of shame coursing through her rich
blood. No man had ever looked at her like that before.
"Take awful good care of him," he sneered, with so plain an
implication of evil that her clean blood boiled. "But I know y'u
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