| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: be of little value to us and never heard of beyond Caprona's
walls--this crater was once entirely filled with water.
Indisputable evidence of this is on the face of the cliffs.
Our return journey occupied two days and was as filled with
adventure as usual. We are all becoming accustomed to adventure.
It is beginning to pall on us. We suffered no casualties and
there was no illness.
I had to smile as I read Bradley's report. In those four days
he had doubtless passed through more adventures than an African
big-game hunter experiences in a lifetime, and yet he covered it
all in a few lines. Yes, we are becoming accustomed to adventure.
The Land that Time Forgot |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: Simon always overwhelmed him by the force and elegance of his
rhetoric. He spoke familiarly of great men and great events.
His business relations--for Master Sneed was a business man--were
not very complicated. According to his own reckoning, he was the
chief person in the employ of Messrs. Sands & Co., wholesale and
retail dry good Washington Street; one who had rendered immense
service to the firm, and one without whom the firm could not
possibly get along a single day; in short, a sort of Atlas, on
whose broad shoulders the vast world of the Messrs. Sands & Co.'s
affairs rested. But according to the reckoning of the firm, and
the general understanding of people, Master Simon was a boy in
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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 Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: Wilbur gasped and stared. "Good Lord!" he muttered. "Oh, come
along," he added, desperately.
The party came over the side.
"Oh, my!" said Miss Herrick blankly, stopping short.
The decks, masts, and rails of the schooner were shiny with a
black coating of dirt and grease; the sails were gray with grime;
a strangling odor of oil and tar, of cooking and of opium, of
Chinese punk and drying fish, pervaded all the air. In the waist,
Hoang and Jim, bare to the belt, their queues looped around their
necks to be out of the way, were stowing the dory and exchanging
high-pitched monosyllables. Miss Herrick's sister had not come
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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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: equations with two unknown quantities; he had studied descriptive
geometry, and drew admirably well; in fact, he was prepared to pass
the entrance examination of the Ecole polytechnique.
Sometimes of an evening he went down to the bridge of Tours. There was
a lieutenant there on half-pay, an Imperial naval officer, whose manly
face, medal, and gait had made an impression on the boy's imagination,
and the officer on his side had taken a liking to the lad, whose eyes
sparkled with energy. Louis, hungering for tales of adventure, and
eager for information, used to follow in the lieutenant's wake for the
chance of a chat with him. It so happened that the sailor had a friend
and comrade in the colonel of a regiment of infantry, struck off the
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