| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: pass, armed with long rakes, with which they drag this scum to the
bank, heaping it on platforms placed at equal distances when the salt
is fit to handle.
For two hours we skirted the edge of this melancholy checkerboard,
where salt has stifled all forms of vegetation, and where no one ever
comes but a few "paludiers," the local name given to the laborers of
the salt marshes. These men, or rather this clan of Bretons, wear a
special costume: a white jacket, something like that of brewers. They
marry among themselves. There is no instance of a girl of the tribe
having ever married any man who was not a paludier.
The horrible aspects of these marshes, these sloughs, the mud of which
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: lower upon his chest.
Tarzan knew what the result would be. In an instant the
neck would break. Then there came to Terkoz's rescue the
same thing that had put him in these sore straits--a man's
reasoning power.
"If I kill him," thought Tarzan, "what advantage will it be
to me? Will it not rob the tribe of a great fighter? And if
Terkoz be dead, he will know nothing of my supremacy,
while alive he will ever be an example to the other apes."
"KA-GODA?" hissed Tarzan in Terkoz's ear, which, in ape
tongue, means, freely translated: "Do you surrender?"
Tarzan of the Apes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: appeared to lend a zest to it, as an interesting episode in the
career of a nobleman. He was not restless; he was not discontented.
His whole nature was at once elated and calmed. He was not at all
feverish to get away from his familiar existence, from the woods and
the waters he knew so well, from the large liberty of the unpeopled
forest, the joyous rush of the great river, the splendid breadth of
the open sky. Unconsciously these things had gone into his blood.
Dimly he felt the premonitions of homesickness for them all. But he
was lifted up to remember that the blood into which these things had
entered was blue blood, and that though he lived in the wilderness
he really belonged to la haute classe. A breath of romance, a
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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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: And tugg'd for life and was by strength subdu'd.
Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking;
His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,
Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodged.
It cannot be but he was murther'd here;
The least of all these signs were probable.
SUFFOLK.
Why, Warwick, who should do the duke to death?
Myself and Beaufort had him in protection;
And we, I hope, sir, are no murtherers.
WARWICK.
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