| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: suddenly lighter, and my spirits rose accordingly. I shouted
down to those below that I saw daylight ahead, and a great shout
of thanksgiving reverberated through the ship. A moment later we
emerged into sunlit water, and immediately I raised the periscope
and looked about me upon the strangest landscape I had ever seen.
We were in the middle of a broad and now sluggish river the banks
of which were lined by giant, arboraceous ferns, raising their
mighty fronds fifty, one hundred, two hundred feet into the
quiet air. Close by us something rose to the surface of the river
and dashed at the periscope. I had a vision of wide, distended jaws,
and then all was blotted out. A shiver ran down into the tower as
 The Land that Time Forgot |
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 An International Episode by Henry James: and their opportunities for conversation were such only as were offered
by the deferential London shopmen. Bessie Alden, even in driving
from the station, took an immense fancy to the British metropolis,
and at the risk of exhibiting her as a young woman of vulgar tastes it
must be recorded that for a considerable period she desired no higher
pleasure than to drive about the crowded streets in a hansom cab.
To her attentive eyes they were full of a strange picturesque life,
and it is at least beneath the dignity of our historic muse to enumerate
the trivial objects and incidents which this simple young lady from Boston
found so entertaining. It may be freely mentioned, however, that whenever,
after a round of visits in Bond Street and Regent Street, she was
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