| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: ash and beech and oak, their characteristics evidently induced by
the lower temperature of the air above the cold water and by the
fact that their roots were watered by the water from the stream
rather than from the warm springs which we afterward found in such
abundance elsewhere.
Our first concern was to fill the water tanks of the U-33 with
fresh water, and that having been accomplished, we set out to
hunt for game and explore inland for a short distance. Olson, von
Schoenvorts, two Englishmen and two Germans accompanied me,
leaving ten to guard the ship and the girl. I had intended
leaving Nobs behind, but he got away and joined me and was so
The Land that Time Forgot |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: where the wall had split. Jane did not look high, but she felt
the overshadowing of broken rims above. She felt that it was a
fearful, menacing place. And she climbed on in heartrending
effort. And she fell beside Lassiter and Fay at the top of the
incline in a narrow, smooth divide.
He staggered to his feet--staggered to a huge, leaning rock that
rested on a small pedestal. He put his hand on it--the hand that
had been shot through--and Jane saw blood drip from the ragged
hole. Then he fell.
"Jane--I--can't--do--it!" he whispered.
"What?"
Riders of the Purple Sage |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: friends now; and let me hear the man that will speak a word
against you, or your country, for your sake."
Robin Oig was still under the dominion of his passion, and eager
to renew the onset; but being withheld on the one side by the
peacemaking Dame Heskett, and on the other, aware that Wakefield
no longer meant to renew the combat, his fury sunk into gloomy
sullenness.
"Come, come, never grudge so much at it, man," said the brave-
spirited Englishman, with the placability of his country; "shake
hands, and we will be better friends than ever."
"Friends!" exclaimed Robin Oig with strong emphasis--"friends!
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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 The Message by Honore de Balzac: came to take the seat beside me from preference, listened to my
reasoning with inoffensive smiles. An approximate nearness of
age, a similarity in ways of thinking, a common love of fresh
air, and of the rich landscape scenery through which the coach
was lumbering along,--these things, together with an
indescribable magnetic something, drew us before long into one of
those short-lived traveller's intimacies, in which we unbend with
the more complacency because the intercourse is by its very
nature transient, and makes no implicit demands upon the future.
We had not come thirty leagues before we were talking of women
and love. Then, with all the circumspection demanded in such
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