| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: receive; and he could not help putting his wife's sage advice into
practice.
"I will fall back on a simple little citizen's wife," said he to
himself, recalling Madame Marneffe's adorable graces. "Such a woman as
that will soon make me forget that grasping Josepha."
Now, this was what was happening at the same moment outside and inside
the curiosity shop.
As he fixed his eyes on the windows of his new /belle/, the Baron saw
the husband, who, while brushing his coat with his own hands, was
apparently on the lookout, expecting to see some one on the square.
Fearing lest he should be seen, and subsequently recognized, the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: darted into the air, circled the temple once and then,
hissing like steam engines, swooped down upon the remaining slaves.
There was no hypnotism here--just the plain, brutal ferocity
of the beast of prey, tearing, rending, and gulping its meat,
but at that it was less horrible than the uncanny method of
the Mahars. By the time the thipdars had disposed of the last
of the slaves the Mahars were all asleep upon their rocks,
and a moment later the great pterodactyls swung back
to their posts beside the queen, and themselves dropped
into slumber.
"I thought the Mahars seldom, if ever, slept," I said
At the Earth's Core |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: fortune could not last indefinitely, and, assured that Thurid would
not again leave me alive, I awaited the bursting of the next shell
that hit; and then, throwing my hands above my head, I let go my hold
and crumpled, limp and inert, dangling in my harness like a corpse.
The ruse worked, and Thurid fired no more at us. Presently I
heard the diminishing sound of whirring propellers and realized
that again I was safe.
Slowly the stricken flier sank to the ground, and when I had freed
myself and Woola from the entangling wreckage I found that we were
The Warlord of Mars |
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 Young Forester by Zane Grey: was an easier task than the getting it back again was likely to prove. Next
I broke open a box of cartridges and loaded the Winchester. My revolver was
already loaded, and hung on my belt. Remembering Dick's letters about the
bears and mountain-lions in Penetier Forest, I got a good deal of comfort
out of my weapons. Then I built a fire, and while my supper was cooking I
scraped up a mass of pine-needles for a bed. Never had I sat down to a meal
with such a sense of strange enjoyment.
But when I had finished and had everything packed away and covered, my mind
began to wander in unexpected directions. Why was it that the twilight
seemed to move under the giant pines and creep down the hollow? While I
gazed the gray shadows deepened to black, and night came suddenly. My
The Young Forester |
