| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: Sometimes she shut her eyes, straining her ears to listen through
space, wishing that she could annihilate everything that lay
between her and her lover, and so establish that perfect silence
which sounds may traverse from afar. In her tense
self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful to her;
she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of
midnight sounded from the drawing-room.
"Ah, God!" she cried, "to see him here would be happiness.
And yet, it is not so very long since he came here, brought by
desire, and the tones of his voice filled this boudoir. And now
there is nothing."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: swamp the sweetest music that ever fell upon the ears of
man--the sharp staccato of at least two score rifles fired
rapidly at will. Down went the Galu and Kro-lu warriors like
tenpins before that deadly fusillade.
What could it mean? To me it meant but one thing, and that was
that Hollis and Short and the others had scaled the cliffs and
made their way north to the Galu country upon the opposite side
of the island in time to save Ajor and me from almost certain death.
I didn't have to have an introduction to them to know that the
men who held those rifles were the men of my own party; and when,
a few minutes later, they came forth from their concealment,
The People That Time Forgot |
