| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: the body shall be cast into the sea." We elevated one end of the
hatch-cover, and the Bricklayer plunged outboard and was gone.
Back into the forecastle we cleaned house, washing out the dead
man's bunk and removing every vestige of him. By sea law and sea
custom, we should have gathered his effects together and turned
them over to the captain, who, later, would have held an auction
in which we should have bid for the various articles. But no man
wanted them, so we tossed them up on deck and overboard in the
wake of the departed body--the last ill-treatment we could devise
to wreak upon the one we had hated so. Oh, it was raw, believe
me; but the life we lived was raw, and we were as raw as the life.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: voluntary companion upon my return to the outer world
was Tu-al-sa. This was the first time that I had learned
the lady's name. I thanked fate that I had not left her
upon the sands of the Sahara--or put a bullet in her, as
I had been tempted to do. I was surprised to discover
that gratitude was a characteristic of the dominant race
of Pellucidar. I could never think of them as aught but
cold-blooded, brainless reptiles, though Perry had de-
voted much time in explaining to me that owing to a
strange freak of evolution among all the genera of the
inner world, this species of the reptilia had advanced to
Pellucidar |
