| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the shadows beside the tent. What thoughts passed through
that savage mind? Who may say? No outward sign of
passion was revealed by the expression of the handsome face;
the cold, gray eyes denoted only intense watchfulness. Pres-
ently the soldier Tarzan had heard first rose and with a parting
word turned away. He passed within ten feet of the ape-man
and continued on toward the rear of the camp. Tarzan fol-
lowed and in the shadows of a clump of bushes overtook his
quarry. There was no sound as the man beast sprang upon
the back of his prey and bore it to the ground for steel fingers
closed simultaneously upon the soldier's throat, effectually
Tarzan the Untamed |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: I'll trust the man as long as he can smile.
I trust him who can smile and then may live
In my heart's house, where Nimmo is today.
God knows if I have more than men forgive
To tell him; but I played, and I shall pay.
I knew him then, and if I know him yet,
I know in him, defeated and estranged,
The calm of men forbidden to forget
The calm of women who have loved and changed.
But there are ways that are beyond our ways,
Or he would not be calm and she be mute,
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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 A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: groped for Lucien's knee, and pressed it against her own, and clasped
her fingers upon his hand. She was silent. All her power to feel
seemed to be concentrated upon the ineffable joy of a moment which
brings compensation for the whole wretched past of a life such as
these poor creatures lead, and develops within their souls a poetry of
which other women, happily ignorant of these violent revulsions, know
nothing.
"You played like Mlle. Mars herself towards the end," said du Bruel.
"Yes," said Camusot, "something put her out at the beginning; but from
the middle of the second act to the very end, she was enough to drive
you wild with admiration. Half of the success of your play was due to
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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 An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: elsewhere), and so did certain others compelled by duties or by habit
to live permanently in the town. All the personages were of ripe age;
few among them had ever travelled; nearly all had spent their lives in
the provinces, and some had taken part in the chouannerie. The latter
were beginning to speak fearlessly of that war, now that rewards were
being showered on the defenders of the good cause. Monsieur de Valois,
one of the movers in the last uprising (during which the Marquis de
Montauran, betrayed by his mistress, perished in spite of the devotion
of Marche-a-Terre, now tranquilly raising cattle for the market near
Mayenne),--Monsieur de Valois had, during the last six months, given
the key to several choice stratagems practised upon an old republican
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