The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: the ruined houses the gray grass turned green again, and in travesties
of gardens early spring flowers began to show a touch of color.
The first of them greeted Sara Lee one morning as she stood on her
doorstep in the early sun. She gathered them and placed them, one on
each grave, in the cemetery near the poplar trees, where small wooden
crosses, sometimes surmounted by a cap, marked many graves.
Marie, a silent subdued Marie, worked steadily in the little house. She
did not weep, but now and then Sara Lee found her stirring something on
the stove and looking toward the quiet mill in the fields. And once
Sara Lee, surprising that look on her face, put her arms about the girl
and held her for a moment. But she did not say anything. There was
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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 The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: feel no enmity toward this savage barbarian who acted almost as
wholly upon instinct as might a wild beast, and to the last moment
I was determined to seek some way to avoid what now seemed inevitable.
Ajor stood at my shoulder, her knife ready in her hand and a sneer
on her lips at his suggestion that he would take her with him.
Just as I thought I should have to fire, a chorus of screams
broke from the women beneath us. I saw the man halt and glance
downward, and following his example my eyes took in the panic
and its cause. The women had, evidently, been quitting the
pool and slowly returning toward the caves, when they were
confronted by a monstrous cave-lion which stood directly
 The People That Time Forgot |