| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: and back to Tahiti. I own we are deserters, but we have excuses.
You cannot conceive how these climates agree with the wretched
house-plant of Skerryvore: he wonders to find himself sea-bathing,
and cutting about the world loose, like a grown-up person. They
agree with Fanny too, who does not suffer from her rheumatism, and
with Lloyd also. And the interest of the islands is endless; and
the sea, though I own it is a fearsome place, is very delightful.
We had applied for places in the American missionary ship, the
MORNING STAR, but this trading schooner is a far preferable idea,
giving us more time and a thousandfold more liberty; so we
determined to cut off the missionaries with a shilling.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: "superiority" of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared
in similar things. Each has what the other has not: each completes
the other, and is completed by the other: they are in nothing
alike, and the happiness and perfection of both depends on each
asking and receiving from the other what the other only can give.
Now their separate characters are briefly these. The man's power is
active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the
creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for
speculation and invention; his energy for adventure, for war, and
for conquest, wherever war is just, wherever conquest necessary.
But the woman's power is for rule, not for battle,--and her
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: ment and then all eyes turned toward the colonel.
"Who the devil are you, sir?" snapped that officer.
"Tarzan of the Apes," replied the newcomer.
"Oh, Greystoke!" cried a major, and stepped forward with
outstretched hand.
"Preswick," acknowledged Tarzan as he took the proffered
hand.
"I didn't recognize you at first," apologized the major. "The
last time I saw you you were in London in evening dress.
Quite a difference -- 'pon my word, man, you'll have to admit
it.
Tarzan the Untamed |
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 Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: so would run the verdict; the fact of his suicide was proof of his
guilt of the crime Colonel McIntyre virtually charged him with, and
vice versa.
What had been discovered to point to murder? The finding of a
handkerchief, saturated with amyl nitrite, which had not belonged
to the dead man. Proof - bah! it was ridiculous! What more likely
than that Jimmie, while in the McIntyre house before his arrest as
a burglar, had picked up one of Barbara's handkerchiefs, stuffed
it inside his pocket, and when threatened with exposure on being
held for the grand jury, had, in desperation, crushed the amyl
nitrite capsules in Barbara's handkerchief and killed himself.
The Red Seal |
