| 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: up and scratched Taug behind one of his small, flat ears.
Tarzan saw, and in the instant that he saw, Teeka was no
longer the little playmate of an hour ago; instead she
was a wondrous thing--the most wondrous in the world--and
a possession for which Tarzan would fight to the death
against Taug or any other who dared question his right
of proprietorship.
Stooped, his muscles rigid and one great shoulder turned
toward the young bull, Tarzan of the Apes sidled nearer
and nearer. His face was partly averted, but his keen
gray eyes never left those of Taug, and as he came,
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 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: cables, had served English firms, had married an English girl, had
been one of us for years, trading and sailing in all directions
through the Eastern Archipelago, across and around, transversely,
diagonally, perpendicularly, in semi-circles, and zigzags, and
figures of eights, for years and years.
There was no nook or cranny of these tropical waters that the
enterprise of old Nelson (or Nielsen) had not penetrated in an
eminently pacific way. His tracks, if plotted out, would have
covered the map of the Archipelago like a cobweb - all of it, with
the sole exception of the Philippines. He would never approach
that part, from a strange dread of Spaniards, or, to be exact, of
'Twixt Land & Sea |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: which Aunt Abbie had hitched his goat. He drove by in
style, lifted his chubby hand to his mother and
shouted:
"Dood-by, Doc-ter!"
The Doctor waved a smiling answer, and lapsed into
a long silence.
He waked at last from his absorption to notice that
Mary was day-dreaming. The fair brow was drawn into
deep lines of brooding.
"Why shadows in your eyes a day like this, little
mother?" he asked softly.
|
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 Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "I was dreadfully fussy while I was a woolly lamb," said Dorothy,
"for it didn't feel good, a bit. And I wasn't quite sure, you know,
that I'd ever get to be a girl again."
"You might have been a woolly lamb yet, if I hadn't happened to have
discovered that Magic Transformation Word," declared the Wizard.
"But what became of the walnut and the hickory-nut into which you
transformed those dreadful beast magicians?" inquired Ozma.
"Why, I'd almost forgotten them," was the reply; "but I believe they
are still here in my pocket."
Then he searched in his pockets and brought out the two nuts and
showed them to her.
The Magic of Oz |
