| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: salvation, there came to his sensitive nostrils a faint and a
familiar scent. Instantly every faculty of his mind was upon
the alert. Presently his trained ears caught the sound of the
soundless presence without--behind the hut wherein he lay.
His lips moved, and though no sound came forth that might
have been appreciable to a human ear beyond the walls of
his prison, yet he realized that the one beyond would hear.
Already he knew who that one was, for his nostrils had told
him as plainly as your eyes or mine tell us of the identity of
an old friend whom we come upon in broad daylight.
An instant later he heard the soft sound of a fur-clad
The Beasts of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: exclamations, "I will allow you to come into the back yard and see me
start. You will then understand something of my electrical powers."
They followed him at once, although with unbelieving faces, and on the
way Rob clasped the little machine to his left wrist, so that his coat
sleeve nearly hid it.
When they reached the lawn at the back of the house Rob kissed them
all good-by, much to his sisters' amusement, and turned the indicator
of the little instrument to the word "up."
Immediately he began to rise into the air.
"Don't worry about me!" he called down to them. "Good-by!"
Mrs. Joslyn, with a scream of terror, hid her face in her hands.
The Master Key |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: persian.
Zeno, Cleanthes, Diogenes Babylonius, Dionysius, Heracleotes, Antipater,
Panaetius, and Possidonius amongst the Greeks;--Cato and Varro and Seneca
amongst the Romans;--Pantenus and Clemens Alexandrinus and Montaigne
amongst the Christians; and a score and a half of good, honest, unthinking
Shandean people as ever lived, whose names I can't recollect,--all
pretended that their jerkins were made after this fashion,--you might have
rumpled and crumpled, and doubled and creased, and fretted and fridged the
outside of them all to pieces;--in short, you might have played the very
devil with them, and at the same time, not one of the insides of them would
have been one button the worse, for all you had done to them.
|
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 Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: Oldring had another range farther on up the pass, and from
theredrove the cattle to distant Utah towns where he was little
known But Venters came finally to doubt this. And, from what he
had learned in the last few days, a belief began to form in
Venters's mind that Oldring's intimidations of the villages and
the mystery of the Masked Rider, with his alleged evil deeds, and
the fierce resistance offered any trailing riders, and the
rustling of cattle-- these things were only the craft of the
rustler-chief to conceal his real life and purpose and work in
Deception Pass.
And like a scouting Indian Venters crawled through the sage of
Riders of the Purple Sage |
