| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: principally because of their garrulity. The small apes
talked a great deal and ran away from an enemy. The big,
old bulls of Kerchak talked but little and fought upon
the slightest provocation. Numa, the lion, was not given
to loquacity, yet of all the jungle folk there were few
who fought more often than he.
Tarzan witnessed strange things that night, none of which
he understood, and, perhaps because they were strange,
he thought that they must have to do with the God he could
not understand. He saw three youths receive their first war
spears in a weird ceremony which the grotesque witch-doctor
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: viscous saliva shone vivid. Its great round-pupilled eyes regarded
him stedfastly. At last the nightmare of Benham's childhood had
come true, and he was face to face with a tiger, uncaged,
uncontrolled.
For some moments neither moved, neither the beast nor the man. They
stood face to face, each perhaps with an equal astonishment,
motionless and soundless, in that mad Indian moonlight that makes
all things like a dream.
Benham stood quite motionless, and body and mind had halted
together. That confrontation had an interminableness that had
nothing to do with the actual passage of time. Then some trickle of
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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 Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: through the crevice in the partition. She was lost in conjectures.
Suddenly Servin came in, much earlier than usual.
"Mademoiselle Ginevra," he said, after glancing round the studio, "why
have you placed yourself there? The light is bad. Come nearer to the
rest of the young ladies and pull down that curtain a little."
Then he sat down near Laure, whose work deserved his most cordial
attention.
"Well, well!" he cried; "here, indeed, is a head extremely well done.
You'll be another Ginevra."
The master then went from easel to easel, scolding, flattering,
jesting, and making, as usual, his jests more dreaded than his
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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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: confined. No materials for a life of Faraday are in my hands, and
what I have now to say has arisen almost wholly out of our close
personal relationship.
Letters of his, covering a period of sixteen years, are before me,
each one of which contains some characteristic utterance;--strong,
yet delicate in counsel, joyful in encouragement, and warm in
affection. References which would be pleasant to such of them as
still live are made to Humboldt, Biot, Dumas, Chevreul, Magnus, and
Arago. Accident brought these names prominently forward; but many
others would be required to complete his list of continental
friends. He prized the love and sympathy of men--prized it almost
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