| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: kingdoms were to remain virtually independent,
but there was to be one great overlord, or emperor.
It was decided that I should be the first of the dynasty
of the emperors of Pellucidar.
We set about teaching the women how to make bows and arrows,
and poison pouches. The young men hunted the vipers which
provided the virus, and it was they who mined the iron ore,
and fashioned the swords under Perry's direction.
Rapidly the fever spread from one tribe to another until
representatives from nations so far distant that the
Sarians had never even heard of them came in to take
At the Earth's Core |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: But it is not the wind
That is lifting it now: and it is not the mind
That hath moulded that vision.
A pale woman enters,
As wan as the lamp's waning light, which concenters
Its dull glare upon her. With eyes dim and dimmer
There, all in a slumberous and shadowy glimmer,
The sufferer sees that still form floating on,
And feels faintly aware that he is not alone.
She is flitting before him. She pauses. She stands
By his bedside all silent. She lays her white hands
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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 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: first of which is a profound analogy between two types of
thought. There must have been, besides, a reciprocity of
affection, which does not often obtain between a renowned senior
who is growing old and an obscure junior, whose renown is
increasing. From generation to generation, envy reascends no less
than she redescends. For the honor of French men of letters, let
us add that this exceptional phenomenon has manifested itself
twice in the nineteenth century. Merimee, whom I have also named,
received from Stendhal, at twenty, the same benefits that
Maupassant received from Flaubert.
The author of "Une Vie" and the writer of "Clara Jozul" resemble
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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 Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: completely, left a sort of personal seduction behind them in
the world, and retained, after death, the art of making
friends, Montaigne and Samuel Johnson certainly stand first.
But we have portraits of all sorts of men, from august Caesar
to the king's dwarf; and all sorts of portraits, from a
Titian treasured in the Louvre to a profile over the grocer's
chimney shelf. And so in a less degree, but no less truly,
than the spirit of Montaigne lives on in the delightful
Essays, that of Charles of Orleans survives in a few old
songs and old account-books; and it is still in the choice of
the reader to make this duke's acquaintance, and, if their
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