| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the water that power is denied us. I do not know why;
but I have always heard that this is true--that only
upon the water may a Pellucidarian be lost. This is,
I think, why we all fear the great ocean so--even
those who go upon its surface in canoes. Juag has
told us that they never go beyond the sight of land."
We had lowered the sail after the blow while we
were discussing the best course to pursue. Our little
craft had been drifting idly, rising and falling with the
great waves that were now diminishing. Sometimes we
were upon the crest--again in the hollow. As Dian
Pellucidar |
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 Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: destroyed within a radius of thirty miles, and the land was as bare of
black men as a child's hand of hair; and even the beasts seemed to have
vanished.
In the shade of the tent, formed of the canvas across two posts, lay three
white men, whose work it was to watch the pots and guard the camp. They
were all three Colonial Englishmen, and lay on the ground on their
stomachs, passing the time by carrying on a desultory conversation, or
taking a few whiffs, slowly, and with care, from their pipes, for tobacco
was precious in the camp.
Under some bushes a few yards off lay a huge trooper, whose nationality was
uncertain, but who was held to hail from some part of the British Isles,
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