| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: signal of command, the pirates in our immediate vicinity
dashed recklessly to the ground in the very midst of the
thern soldiery.
Scarcely waiting for their craft to touch, the creatures
manning them leaped among the therns with the fury of
demons. Such fighting! Never had I witnessed its like before.
I had thought the green Martians the most ferocious warriors
in the universe, but the awful abandon with which the black
pirates threw themselves upon their foes transcended everything
I ever before had seen.
Beneath the brilliant light of Mars' two glorious moons the
The Gods of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: kingdoms of the earth. And whether it was wise or foolish,
to-morrow's travel will carry you, body and mind, into some
different parish of the infinite.
CHAPTER XI - PAN'S PIPES
THE world in which we live has been variously said and
sung by the most ingenious poets and philosophers: these
reducing it to formulae and chemical ingredients, those
striking the lyre in high-sounding measures for the handiwork
of God. What experience supplies is of a mingled tissue, and
the choosing mind has much to reject before it can get
together the materials of a theory. Dew and thunder,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: otherwise than hungry, more or less. For what he ate did not so much
relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal in him. Peace and
satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed from my stomach.
I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of old-fashioned
beef in the forecastle, as I used to when I was before the mast.
There's the fruits of promotion now; there's the vanity of glory:
there's the insanity of life! Besides, if it were so that any mere
sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask's official
capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample
vengeance, was to go aft at dinner-time, and get a peep at Flask
through the cabin sky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered before
Moby Dick |
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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: Then suddenly, so suddenly that Fenella and her grandma both leapt, there
sounded from behind the largest wool shed, that had a trail of smoke
hanging over it, "Mia-oo-oo-O-O!"
"First whistle," said her father briefly, and at that moment they came in
sight of the Picton boat. Lying beside the dark wharf, all strung, all
beaded with round golden lights, the Picton boat looked as if she was more
ready to sail among stars than out into the cold sea. People pressed along
the gangway. First went her grandma, then her father, then Fenella. There
was a high step down on to the deck, and an old sailor in a jersey standing
by gave her his dry, hard hand. They were there; they stepped out of the
way of the hurrying people, and standing under a little iron stairway that
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