| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: opening. It was not a difficult feat to reach the window, and
a moment later he drew himself over the sill and dropped
into the room.
He found himself in a rather spacious apartment, the floor of
which was covered with rugs of barbaric design, while the few
pieces of furniture were of a similar type to that which he had
seen in the room on the first floor into which he and Bertha
Kircher had been ushered at the conclusion of their journey.
At one end of the room was what appeared to be a curtained
alcove, the heavy hangings of which completely hid the inte-
rior. In the wall opposite the window and near the alcove was
Tarzan the Untamed |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: literature.'
But if Fleeming was an anxious father, he did not suffer his
anxiety to prevent the boys from any manly or even dangerous
pursuit. Whatever it might occur to them to try, he would
carefully show them how to do it, explain the risks, and then
either share the danger himself or, if that were not possible,
stand aside and wait the event with that unhappy courage of the
looker-on. He was a good swimmer, and taught them to swim. He
thoroughly loved all manly exercises; and during their holidays,
and principally in the Highlands, helped and encouraged them to
excel in as many as possible: to shoot, to fish, to walk, to pull
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: It is even believed that the coal miners, like the salt-makers
of that period, were actual slaves.
However that might have been, Simon Ford was proud
of belonging to this ancient family of Scotch miners.
He had worked diligently in the same place where his ancestors
had wielded the pick, the crowbar, and the mattock.
At thirty he was overman of the Dochart pit, the most important
in the Aberfoyle colliery. He was devoted to his trade.
During long years he zealously performed his duty.
His only grief had been to perceive the bed becoming impoverished,
and to see the hour approaching when the seam would be exhausted.
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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 Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: forget it?
"I read," he said--"yes; and then I come to a word she used, and it is all
back with me again! I go to count my sheep, and I see her face before me,
and I stand and let the sheep run by. I look at you, and in your smile, a
something at the corner of your lips, I see her. How can I forget her
when, whenever I turn, she is there, and not there? I cannot, I will not,
live where I do not see her.
"I know what you think," he said, turning upon her. "You think I am mad;
you think I am going to see whether she will not like me! I am not so
foolish. I should have known at first she never could suffer me. Who am
I, what am I, that she should look at me? It was right that she left me;
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