| 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: the Hairy One shuddered. "No, you will never escape
the Mahars."
It was a cheerful prospect. I asked Perry what he thought
about it; but he only shrugged his shoulders and continued
a longwinded prayer he had been at for some time.
He was wont to say that the only redeeming feature of our
captivity was the ample time it gave him for the improvisation
of prayers--it was becoming an obsession with him.
The Sagoths had begun to take notice of his habit
of declaiming throughout entire marches. One of them
asked him what he was saying--to whom he was talking.
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 Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: seemed, asleep.
"Greeting, my husband," she said slowly, like one who wakens. "I have
dreamed a strange dream of you. I dreamed that you were called a king,
and that all the regiments of the Zulus filed past giving you the
royal salute, Bayete."
Umslopogaas looked at her wondering, for he did not know if she had
learned something or if this was an omen. "Such dreams are dangerous,"
he said, "and he who dreams them does well to lock them fast till they
be forgotten."
"Or fulfilled," said Zinita, and again Umslopogaas looked at her
wondering.
Nada the Lily |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: I needn't ask you which of them looked more of a fool.'
CHAPTER II. THE PARSON'S MARJORY.
After some years the old people died, both in one winter, very
carefully tended by their adopted son, and very quietly mourned
when they were gone. People who had heard of his roving fancies
supposed he would hasten to sell the property, and go down the
river to push his fortunes. But there was never any sign of such
in intention on the part of Will. On the contrary, he had the inn
set on a better footing, and hired a couple of servants to assist
him in carrying it on; and there he settled down, a kind,
talkative, inscrutable young man, six feet three in his stockings,
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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 Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: steady muttering continued and also a sound of moving.
'He is prostrating himself to the ground, no doubt,' thought she.
'But he won't bow himself out of it. He is thinking of me just
as I am thinking of him. He is thinking of these feet of mine
with the same feeling that I have!' And she pulled off her wet
stockings and put her feet up on the bench, pressing them under
her. She sat a while like that with her arms round her knees and
looking pensively before her. 'But it is a desert, here in this
silence. No one would ever know. . . .'
She rose, took her stockings over to the stove, and hung them on
the damper. It was a queer damper, and she turned it about, and
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