| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: came through safely.
Before we halted to eat or rest, we stood beside a
little mountain brook beneath the wondrous trees of the
primeval forest in an atmosphere of warmth and com-
fort. It reminded me of an early June day in the Maine
Woods.
We fell to work with our short axes and cut enough
small trees to build a rude protection from the fiercer
beasts. Then we lay down to sleep.
How long we slept I do not know. Perry says that
inasmuch as there is no means of measuring time within
Pellucidar |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: to header material.
***
#STARTMARK#
Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
March 4, 1865
Fellow countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath
of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended
address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat
in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper.
Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations
have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great
Second Inaugural Address |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Was answer'd: "if thou well discern, why first
He hath defin'd it, substance, and then proof."
"The deep things," I replied, "which here I scan
Distinctly, are below from mortal eye
So hidden, they have in belief alone
Their being, on which credence hope sublime
Is built; and therefore substance it intends.
And inasmuch as we must needs infer
From such belief our reasoning, all respect
To other view excluded, hence of proof
Th' intention is deriv'd." Forthwith I heard:
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
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 Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: him, a minute, as if still charged with the unspoken. Her movement
might have been for some finer emphasis of what she was at once
hesitating and deciding to say. He had been standing by the
chimney-piece, fireless and sparely adorned, a small perfect old
French clock and two morsels of rosy Dresden constituting all its
furniture; and her hand grasped the shelf while she kept him
waiting, grasped it a little as for support and encouragement. She
only kept him waiting, however; that is he only waited. It had
become suddenly, from her movement and attitude, beautiful and
vivid to him that she had something more to give him; her wasted
face delicately shone with it--it glittered almost as with the
|
