| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: tenderness.
During their brief conversation several attendants had come out upon
the balcony; one slave brought a quantity of large, soft cushions, and
arranged them in a kind of temporary couch upon the floor behind his
mistress. Herodias sank upon them, and turning her face away from
Antipas, seemed to be weeping silently. After a few moments she dried
her eyes, declared that she would dream no more, and that she was, in
reality, perfectly happy. She reminded Antipas of their former long
delightful interviews in the atrium; their meetings at the baths;
their walks along the Sacred Way, and the sweet evening rendezvous at
the villa, among the flowery groves, listening to the murmur of
Herodias |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: Our baby to-day but to-morrow our man?
It's that tough little, rough little tyke in the mud,
That tousled-haired, fun-loving rascal called Bud!
The Front Seat
When I was but a little lad I always liked to ride,
No matter what the rig we had, right by the driver's side.
The front seat was the honor place in bob-sleigh, coach or hack,
And I maneuvered to avoid the cushions in the back.
We children used to scramble then to share the driver's seat,
And long the pout I wore when I was not allowed that treat.
Though times have changed and I am old I still confess I race
Just Folks |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: a speed that would make a thoroughbred look to his
laurels. The result in this instance was that before I
had more than assimilated the gist of the word which
had been brought to the fields, I was alone, watching
my co-workers speeding villageward.
I was alone! It was the first time since my capture
that no beast-man had been within sight of me. I was
alone! And all my captors were in the village at the op-
posite edge of the mesa repelling an attack of Hooja's
horde!
It seemed from the messenger's tale that two of
Pellucidar |
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 Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: of development. Seven generations of the same ancestor must come
up from the beginning before a cos-ata-lu child may be born;
and when one considers the frightful dangers that surround the
vital spark from the moment it leaves the warm pool where it has
been deposited to float down to the sea amid the voracious creatures
that swarm the surface and the deeps and the almost equally
unthinkable trials of its effort to survive after it once becomes
a land animal and starts northward through the horrors of the
Caspakian jungles and forests, it is plainly a wonder that even
a single babe has ever been born to a Galu woman.
Seven cycles it requires before the seventh Galu can complete the
Out of Time's Abyss |
