| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: certain West Indian islet (not far from St. Kitt's, as beloved
tradition hummed in my young ears) which was once ours, and is now
unjustly some one else's, and for that matter (in the state of the
sugar trade) is not worth anything to anybody. I do not say that
these revolutions are likely; only no man can deny that they are
possible; and the past, on the other baud, is, lost for ever: our
old days and deeds, our old selves, too, and the very world in
which these scenes were acted, all brought down to the same faint
residuum as a last night's dream, to some incontinuous images, and
an echo in the chambers of the brain. Not an hour, not a mood, not
a glance of the eye, can we revoke; it is all gone, past conjuring.
|
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 Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: it a much graver matter than I had anticipated. Not only was
the forced angle at which we were compelled to maintain
the bow in order to keep a horizontal course greatly impeding
our speed, but at the rate that we were losing our repulsive
rays from the forward tanks it was but a question of an hour
or more when we would be floating stern up and helpless.
We had slightly reduced our speed with the dawning of a
sense of security, but now I took the helm once more and
pulled the noble little engine wide open, so that again we
raced north at terrific velocity. In the meantime Carthoris
and Xodar with tools in hand were puttering with the great
The Gods of Mars |
