| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: We followed some of them for a distance, but found none that
gave any particular promise. Most of them were choked with rocks
and boulders through which it was difficult to force a passage. We
spent an hour or more in these futile explorations, then followed
the wall some distance to the right.
Gradually the exits became less numerous. High on a boulder
near the entrance of one we saw the head of some animal peering
down at us. We hurled our spears at it, but missed; then were
forced to climb up the steep side of the boulder to recover our
weapons.
"We'd better go back to Desiree," said Harry when we reached
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: hundred yards when ahead he saw a lessening of the pitch-darkness,
and at the next turn of the stream his surroundings became
vaguelydiscernible. Above him was an arched roof and on either
hand walls pierced at intervals by apertures covered with
wooden doors. Just ahead of him in the roof of the aqueduct
was a round, black hole about thirty inches in diameter.
His eyes still rested upon the opening when there shot downward
from it to the water below the naked body of a human being which
almost immediately rose to the surface again and floated off down
the stream. In the dim light Bradley saw that it was a dead
Wieroo from which the wings and head had been removed. A moment
 Out of Time's Abyss |