| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: as he noted the terrified expressions upon the faces of his audience.
The mother and tutor both rushed toward the window but before
they had crossed half the room the boy had leaped nimbly to the
sill and entered the apartment with them.
"`The wild man from Borneo has just come to town,'" he sang,
dancing a species of war dance about his terrified mother
and scandalized tutor, and ending up by throwing his arms about
the former's neck and kissing her upon either cheek.
"Oh, Mother," he cried, "there's a wonderful, educated ape
being shown at one of the music halls. Willie Grimsby saw it
last night. He says it can do everything but talk. It rides
 The Son of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: either side they understood not one word they could say, they put
off with their boat, and came back towards the first island; where,
when they arrived, they set eight of their prisoners at liberty,
there being too many of them for their occasion. In their voyage
they endeavoured to have some communication with their prisoners;
but it was impossible to make them understand anything. Nothing
they could say to them, or give them, or do for them, but was
looked upon as going to murder them. They first of all unbound
them; but the poor creatures screamed at that, especially the
women, as if they had just felt the knife at their throats; for
they immediately concluded they were unbound on purpose to be
 Robinson Crusoe |