| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: as if he knew lots of things she had never dreamed of,
and yet wouldn't for the world have had her feel his
superiority. But she did feel it, and liked the
feeling; for it was new to her. Poor and ignorant as
she was, and knew herself to be--humblest of the humble
even in North Dormer, where to come from the Mountain
was the worst disgrace--yet in her narrow world she had
always ruled. It was partly, of course, owing to the
fact that lawyer Royall was "the biggest man in North
Dormer"; so much too big for it, in fact, that
outsiders, who didn't know, always wondered how it held
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: landing of hostile airships a precarious undertaking."
"That, and your brave warriors?" suggested the girl.
Gahan smiled. "We do not speak of that except to enemies," he
said, "and then with tongues of steel rather than of flesh."
"But what practice in the art of war has a people which nature
has thus protected from attack?" asked Tara of Helium, who had
liked the young jed's answer to her previous question, but yet in
whose mind persisted a vague conviction of the possible
effeminacy of her companion, induced, doubtless, by the
magnificence of his trappings and weapons which carried a
suggestion of splendid show rather than grim utility.
The Chessmen of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: AN Editor who was always vaunting the purity, enterprise, and
fearlessness of his paper was pained to observe that he got no
subscribers. One day it occurred to him to stop saying that his
paper was pure and enterprising and fearless, and make it so. "If
these are not good qualities," he reasoned, "it is folly to claim
them."
Under the new policy he got so many subscribers that his rivals
endeavoured to discover the secret of his prosperity, but he kept
it, and when he died it died with him.
The Ants and the Grasshopper
SOME Members of a Legislature were making schedules of their wealth
Fantastic Fables |
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 Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: become so tough from continual knocking about that I did not set it down
at much.
"Well, I got on all right for a while. It is a wonderfully beautiful
piece of bush veldt, with great ranges of mountains running through it,
and round granite koppies starting up here and there, looking out like
sentinels over the rolling waste of bush. But it is very hot--hot as a
stew-pan--and when I was there that March, which, of course, is autumn
in this part of Africa, the whole place reeked of fever. Every morning,
as I trekked along down by the Oliphant River, I used to creep from the
waggon at dawn and look out. But there was no river to be seen--only a
long line of billows of what looked like the finest cotton wool tossed
Long Odds |
