| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: and plunged into the tangled vegetation.
In an instant they were in a hand-to-hand fight with some
fifty black warriors of Mbonga's village. Arrows and bullets
flew thick and fast.
Queer African knives and French gun butts mingled for a
moment in savage and bloody duels, but soon the natives fled
into the jungle, leaving the Frenchmen to count their losses.
Four of the twenty were dead, a dozen others were
wounded, and Lieutenant D'Arnot was missing. Night was
falling rapidly, and their predicament was rendered doubly
worse when they could not even find the elephant trail which
Tarzan of the Apes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: "Yes," replied the Captain; "sometimes the animal
turns upon its assailants and overturns their boat.
But for Master Land this danger is not to be feared.
His eye is prompt, his arm sure."
At this moment seven men of the crew, mute and immovable as ever,
mounted the platform. One carried a harpoon and a line similar
to those employed in catching whales. The pinnace was lifted from
the bridge, pulled from its socket, and let down into the sea.
Six oarsmen took their seats, and the coxswain went to the tiller.
Ned, Conseil, and I went to the back of the boat.
"You are not coming, Captain?" I asked.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: The Fuegians hid themselves behind the trees, and for every
discharge of the muskets they fired their arrows; all, however,
fell short of the boat, and the officer as he pointed at
them laughed. This made the Fuegians frantic with passion,
and they shook their mantles in vain rage. At last, seeing
the balls cut and strike the trees, they ran away, and we were
left in peace and quietness. During the former voyage the
Fuegians were here very troublesome, and to frighten them a
rocket was fired at night over their wigwams; it answered
effectually, and one of the officers told me that the clamour
first raised, and the barking of the dogs, was quite ludicrous
The Voyage of the Beagle |
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 Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: to Menneville, who rolled at his feet.
"Passage! passage!" cried the companions of Menneville, at
first terrified, but soon recovering, when they found they
had only to do with two men. But those two men were
hundred-armed giants, the swords flew about in their hands
like the burning glaive of the archangel. They pierce with
its point, strike with the flat, cut with the edge, every
stroke brings down a man. "For the king!" cried D'Artagnan,
to every man he struck at, that is to say, to every man that
fell. This cry became the charging word for the musketeers,
who guided by it, joined D'Artagnan. During this time the
Ten Years Later |
