| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: room his eyes fell on a telegraph blank lying face down
upon the floor. He stooped to pick it up, thinking it
might be a message of importance which some one had dropped.
He glanced at it hastily, and then suddenly he forgot his
coat, the approaching train--everything but that terrible
little piece of yellow paper in his hand. He read it twice
before he could fully grasp the terrific weight of meaning
that it bore to him.
When he had picked it up he had been an English nobleman,
the proud and wealthy possessor of vast estates--a moment
later he had read it, and he knew that he was an untitled
The Return of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Cruise of the Jasper B. by Don Marquis: Jasper B. since the day I first set foot on her. And let me warn
you that unless you show your curiosity in some other manner
henceforth, you will seriously regret it. A couple of your men
have repented of your interest already."
"My men? What do you mean by my men? I haven't any men."
Loge's imitation of astonishment was a piece of art; but if
anything he overdid it a trifle. He frowned in a puzzled
fashion, and then said: "You talk about my men; you speak
riddles to me; you appear to threaten me, but after all I have
only made you a plain business proposition. I ask you again,
what will you take for her?"
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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 Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: his only comrade, his chum. She continually met and
parted with thousands of people--they came and went.
"But George and I will be together for all time," she
told herself.
He came up presently and sat down beside her, with an
anxious, apologetic air. It hurt him to think that he
had laughed at her. "That dark haze is the Jersey
shore," he said. "How dim it grows! Well, we are really
out now in the big world! It is so good to be alone
there with you," he added, touching her arm
affectionately. "Those cynical old-men-boys at Harvard
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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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: found in any large assembly said, as the Countess and her escort came
in, that "women had quite as much curiosity about seeing a man who was
faithful to his passion as men had in studying a woman who was
difficult to enthrall."
Though the Comte de Soulanges, a young man of about two-and-thirty,
was endowed with the nervous temperament which in a man gives rise to
fine qualities, his slender build and pale complexion were not at
first sight attractive; his black eyes betrayed great vivacity, but he
was taciturn in company, and there was nothing in his appearance to
reveal the gift for oratory which subsequently distinguished him, on
the Right, in the legislative assembly under the Restoration.
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