| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: might have passed unnoticed by a less keen or careful observer.
There was the door that would lead me within the prison, but
where was the means to open it? No button or lock were visible.
Again and again I went carefully over every square inch of its
surface, but the most that I could find was a tiny pinhole a little
above and to the right of the door's center--a pinhole that seemed
only an accident of manufacture or an imperfection of material.
Into this minute aperture I attempted to peer, but whether it
was but a fraction of an inch deep or passed completely through
The Warlord of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: [Footnote: It may be, of course, that the floor did not slope,
but that the museum was built into the side of a hill.-ED.] The
end I had come in at was quite above ground, and was lit by rare
slit-like windows. As you went down the length, the ground came
up against these windows, until at last there was a pit like the
"area" of a London house before each, and only a narrow line of
daylight at the top. I went slowly along, puzzling about the
machines, and had been too intent upon them to notice the gradual
diminution of the light, until Weena's increasing apprehensions
drew my attention. Then I saw that the gallery ran down at last
into a thick darkness. I hesitated, and then, as I looked round
The Time Machine |
