| 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: for he recognized in the new note almost a supplication -- it
was more like the whine of a hungry dog begging for food
than the voice of the proud king of beasts.
"Soon you will kill -- and feed," he murmured in the ver-
nacular of the great apes.
He unfastened the rope from about the tree and, with Numa
close at his side, slunk into No Man's Land. There was little
rifle fire and only an occasional shell vouched for the presence
of artillery behind the opposing lines. As the shells from
both sides were falling well back of the trenches, they consti-
tuted no menace to Tarzan; but the noise of them and that
Tarzan the Untamed |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: walled city of Lothar as Carthoris broke from the wood
opposite the great gate that had given the fugitives egress
from the city earlier in the day.
At first he saw no indication that there was another
than himself anywhere about. The plain was deserted.
No myriad bowmen camped now beneath the overhanging
verdure of the giant trees. No gory heaps of tortured
dead defaced the beauty of the scarlet sward.
All was silence. All was peace.
The Heliumite, scarce pausing at the forest's verge,
pushed on across the plain toward the city, when presently
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: for the sake of the Orleans branch.
Arrived at the corner of the Rue de Choiseul and the Rue de Hanovre,
Pons suffered from the inexplicable emotions which torment clear
consciences; for a panic terror such as the worst of scoundrels might
feel at sight of a policeman, an agony caused solely by a doubt as to
Mme. de Marville's probable reception of him. That grain of sand,
grating continually on the fibres of his heart, so far from losing its
angles, grew more and more jagged, and the family in the Rue de
Hanovre always sharpened the edges. Indeed, their unceremonious
treatment and Pons' depreciation in value among them had affected the
servants; and while they did not exactly fail in respect, they looked
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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 The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: And Tarquin's eye may read the mot afar,
How he in peace is wounded, not in war.
Alas, how many bear such shameful blows,
Which not themselves, but he that gives them knows!
'If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me,
From me by strong assault it is bereft.
My honey lost, and I, a drone-like bee,
Have no perfection of my summer left,
But robb'd and ransack'd by injurious theft:
In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept,
And suck'd the honey which thy chaste bee kept.
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