| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: my own mount and took my place at his side to meet the
charge of the howling devils bearing down upon us. A
moment later Tars Tarkas and Xodar ranged themselves on
either hand, turning their thoats loose that we might all
be on an equal footing.
The Warhoons were perhaps a hundred yards from us when a
loud explosion sounded from above and behind us, and almost
at the same instant a shell burst in their advancing ranks.
At once all was confusion. A hundred warriors toppled
to the ground. Riderless thoats plunged hither and
thither among the dead and dying. Dismounted warriors were
The Gods of Mars |
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 House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: Here on this sun-and-sea-wrecked shore?
You shade your sea-gray eyes with a sunlit hand
And peer at me . . . far sea-gulls, in your eyes,
Flash in the sun, go down . . . I hear slow sand,
And shrink to nothing beneath blue brilliant skies . . .
* * * * *
The music ends. The screen grows dark. We hurry
To go our devious secret ways, forgetting
Those many lives . . . We loved, we laughed, we killed,
We danced in fire, we drowned in a whirl of sea-waves.
The flutes are stilled, and a thousand dreams are stilled.
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