| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: to hear, so he had asked again.
"My uncle," Ethel answered, and flushed all over her delicate
face, and down to her throat. Nicky had looked at the blonde,
and his eyebrows had gone up ever so slightly.
It spoiled Ethel's evening. More than that, as she told her
mother of it later, weeping, she declared it had spoiled her
life.
Eva talked it over with her husband in that intimate hour that
precedes bedtime. She gesticulated heatedly with her hairbrush.
"It's disgusting, that's what it is. Perfectly disgusting.
There's no fool like an old fool. Imagine! A creature like
 One Basket |
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: trying to place this creature. Just succeeded. It's a tyrannosaurus.
Saw picture of skeleton in magazine. There's one in New York
Natural History Museum. Seems to me it said it was found in place
called Hell Creek somewhere in western North America. Supposed to
have lived about six million years ago."
"Hell Creek's in Montana," said Sinclair. "I used to punch cows
in Wyoming, an' I've heard of Hell Creek. Do you s'pose that
there thing's six million years old?" His tone was skeptical.
"No," replied Bradley; "But it would indicate that the island
of Caprona has stood almost without change for more than six
million years."
 Out of Time's Abyss |