| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: that was plainly audible to all within the chamber.
"O Kulan Tith, Mightiest of Jeddaks," he cried, after the
fashion of the court, "your messenger returns alone, for when he
reached the apartments of the Father of Therns he found them empty,
as were those occupied by his suite."
Kulan Tith went white.
A low groan burst from the lips of Thuvan Dihn who stood next me,
not having ascended the throne which awaited him beside his host.
The Warlord of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: with his arm extended, break his neck with one blow. Again, his
club descended on one black skull with a glancing blow and shot off
to the head of another with the force of a sledge-hammer.
At the time I did not know that I saw these things; it was all
one writhing, struggling, bloody horror; but afterward the eyes of
memory showed them to me.
Still they came. My arm rose and fell seemingly without order
from the brain; I was not conscious that it moved. It seemed to me
that ever since the beginning of time I had stood in that butcher's
doorway and brought down that bar of gold on thick, black skulls
and distorted, grinning faces. But they would not disappear. One
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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 Sportsman by Xenophon: the nets, when these are being taken up,[23] so that if from
inexperience they should lose their way on the hunting-field, they may
come back for it and not be altogether lost. In time they will be quit
of this instinct themselves,[24] when their hostile feeling towards
the animal is developed, and they will be more concerned about the
quarry than disposed to give their food a thought.[25]
[23] {anairontai} sc. {ai arkues}, see above, vi. 26.
[24] Or, "abandon the practice."
[25] See Stonehenge, p. 289 (another context): ". . . the desire for
game in a well-bred dog is much greater than the appetite for
food, unless the stomach has long been deprived of it."
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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 A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: some pretty dove with iridescent colors, perched on a swaying branch
above a spring, and you will give a cry of pain when you see a hawk
swooping down upon her, driving its steel claws into her breast, and
bearing her away with murderous rapidity. When we had advanced a step
or two into an open space which lay before what seemed to be a grotto,
a sort of esplanade placed a hundred feet above the ocean, and
protected from its fury by buttresses of rock, we suddenly experienced
an electrical shudder, something resembling the shock of a sudden
noise awaking us in the dead of night.
We saw, sitting on a vast granite boulder, a man who looked at us. His
glance, like that of the flash of a cannon, came from two bloodshot
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