| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: navy. The navy called to me, as did the free, wide,
unpeopled spaces of the mighty oceans. And so I joined the
navy, coming up from the ranks, as we all must, learning our
craft as we advance. My promotion was rapid, for my family
seems to inherit naval lore. We are born officers, and I
reserve to myself no special credit for an early advancement
in the service.
At twenty I found myself a lieutenant in command of the
aero-submarine Coldwater, of the SS-96 class. The Coldwater
was one of the first of the air and underwater craft which
have been so greatly improved since its launching, and was
Lost Continent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes was set
on the nigger, and he kept swallowing, and put his other
hand up to his throat a couple of times, and at last he
got his words started, and says:
"Does he--does he--think--WHAT does he think! Tell him--tell
him--" Then he sunk down in his chair limp and weak,
and says, so as you could hardly hear him: "Go away--go away!"
The nigger looked scared and cleared out, and we all
felt--well, I don't know how we felt, but it was awful,
with the old man panting there, and his eyes set and looking
like a person that was dying. None of us could budge;
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: "You see, I went on with this research just the way it led me.
That is the only way I ever heard of true research going.
I asked a question, devised some method of obtaining an answer,
and got a fresh question. Was this possible or that possible?
You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator,
what an intellectual passion grows upon him! You cannot imagine
the strange, colourless delight of these intellectual desires!
The thing before you is no longer an animal, a fellow-creature,
but a problem! Sympathetic pain,--all I know of it I remember
as a thing I used to suffer from years ago. I wanted--it was
the one thing I wanted--to find out the extreme limit of plasticity
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
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 Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: as became outlaws.
They built a fire against the side of a great log twenty
or thirty steps within the sombre depths of the forest,
and then cooked some bacon in the frying-pan for sup-
per, and used up half of the corn "pone" stock they had
brought. It seemed glorious sport to be feasting in
that wild, free way in the virgin forest of an unex-
plored and uninhabited island, far from the haunts of
men, and they said they never would return to civiliza-
tion. The climbing fire lit up their faces and threw its
ruddy glare upon the pillared tree-trunks of their forest
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
