The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "It is true then that you eat human flesh?" I asked in horror.
She looked at me in pitying commiseration for my ignorance.
"Truly we eat the flesh of the lower orders. Do not you also?"
"The flesh of beasts, yes," I replied, "but not the flesh of man."
"As man may eat of the flesh of beasts, so may gods eat of
the flesh of man. The Holy Therns are the gods of Barsoom."
I was disgusted and I imagine that I showed it.
"You are an unbeliever now," she continued gently, "but
should we be fortunate enough to escape the clutches of the
black pirates and come again to the court of Matai Shang I
think that we shall find an argument to convince you of the
The Gods of Mars |
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 In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: case of phthisis appeared in a household of seventeen persons, and
by the month of August, when the tale was told me, one soul
survived, and that was a boy who had been absent at his schooling.
And depopulation works both ways, the doors of death being set wide
open, and the door of birth almost closed. Thus, in the half-year
ending July 1888 there were twelve deaths and but one birth in the
district of the Hatiheu. Seven or eight more deaths were to be
looked for in the ordinary course; and M. Aussel, the observant
gendarme, knew of but one likely birth. At this rate it is no
matter of surprise if the population in that part should have
declined in forty years from six thousand to less than four
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