| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: through the wood like tiny snakes. The smoke grew
thicker and thicker, at times shrouding the whole face
of the cliff. But I was high up and it did not bother
me much, though it stung my eyes and I rubbed them with
my knuckles.
Old Marrow-Bone was the first to be smoked out. A
light fan of air drifted the smoke away at the time so
that I saw clearly. He broke out through the smoke,
stepping on a burning coal and screaming with the
sudden hurt of it, and essayed to climb up the cliff.
The arrows showered about him. He came to a pause on a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Tarzan placed a large palm over his treasure. He bared
his fighting fangs, and growled. Werper withdrew his
hand more quickly than he had advanced it. Tarzan
resumed his playing with the gems, and his conversation
with Werper as though nothing unusual had occurred.
He had but exhibited the beast's jealous protective
instinct for a possession. When he killed he shared
the meat with Werper; but had Werper ever, by accident,
laid a hand upon Tarzan's share, he would have aroused
the same savage, and resentful warning.
From that occurrence dated the beginning of a great
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: struggle,' said I to him, `and remember that there shall be now
no quarter.' He attacked me with redoubled fury. I must confess
that I was not an accomplished swordsman, having had but three
months' tuition in Paris. Love, however, guided my weapon.
Synnelet pierced me through and through the left arm; but I
caught him whilst thus engaged, and made so vigorous a thrust
that I stretched him senseless at my feet.
"In spite of the triumphant feeling that victory, after a mortal
conflict, inspires, I was immediately horrified by the certain
consequences of his death. There could not be the slightest hope
of either pardon or respite from the vengeance I had thus
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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 Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: may it not be far in our rear? Is not its seeming wisdom rather the
precociousness of what is destined never to go far?
Brought suddenly upon such a civilization, after the blankness of a
long ocean voyage, one is reminded instinctively of the feelings of
that bewildered individual who, after a dinner at which he had
eventually ceased to be himself, was by way of pleasantry left out
overnight in a graveyard, on their way home, by his humorously
inclined companions; and who, on awaking alone, in a still dubious
condition, looked around him in surprise, rubbed his eyes two or
three times to no purpose, and finally muttered in a tone of
awe-struck conviction, "Well, either I'm the first to rise, or I'm a
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