| 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: as she already had, until I should have hated her;
but the pitiful fact remained that I loved her, and I
couldn't leave her there alone.
The more I thought about it the madder I got,
so that by the time I reached the valley I was furious,
and the result of it was that I turned right around
and went up that cliff again as fast as I had come down.
I saw that Dian had left the ledge and gone within the cave,
but I bolted right in after her. She was lying upon her
face on the pile of grasses I had gathered for her bed.
When she heard me enter she sprang to her feet like
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 A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: colossal piece of buffoonery, half excused by the very audacity of its
conception. La Palferine was sauntering, cane in hand, up and down the
pavement between the Rue de Grammont and the Rue de Richelieu, when in
the distance he descried a woman too elegantly dressed, covered, as he
phrased it, with a great deal of portable property, too expensive and
too carelessly worn for its owner to be other than a princess of the
court or of the stage, it was not easy at first to say which. But
after July 1830, in his opinion, there is no mistaking the indications
--the princess can only be a princess of the stage.
"The Count came up and walked by her side as if she had given him an
assignation. He followed her with a courteous persistence, a
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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 Art of War by Sun Tzu: the situation remains at a deadlock."]
7. In a position of this sort, even though the enemy should
offer us an attractive bait,
[Tu Yu says, "turning their backs on us and pretending to
flee." But this is only one of the lures which might induce us
to quit our position.]
it will be advisable not to stir forth, but rather to retreat,
thus enticing the enemy in his turn; then, when part of his army
has come out, we may deliver our attack with advantage.
8. With regard to NARROW PASSES, if you can occupy them
first, let them be strongly garrisoned and await the advent of
The Art of War |
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 Underground City by Jules Verne: Yes, nature alone! It might at first have been supposed that some works
abandoned for centuries had been discovered afresh. Nothing of the sort.
No one would have deserted such riches. Human termites had never gnawed
away this part of the Scottish subsoil; nature herself had done it all.
But, we repeat, it could be compared to nothing but the celebrated
Mammoth caves, which, in an extent of more than twenty miles,
contain two hundred and twenty-six avenues, eleven lakes, seven rivers,
eight cataracts, thirty-two unfathomable wells, and fifty-seven domes,
some of which are more than four hundred and fifty feet in height.
Like these caves, New Aberfoyle was not the work of men, but the work
of the Creator.
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