| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the ape-man became impatient.
"You will obey the commands of your queen," he said,
"and go back to Opar with her or Tarzan of the Apes
will call together the other creatures of the jungle
and slay you all. La saved me that I might save you
and her. I have served you better alive than I could
have dead. If you are not all fools you will let me go
my way in peace and you will return to Opar with La.
I know not where the sacred knife is; but you can fashion
another. Had I not taken it from La you would have
slain me and now your god must be glad that I took it
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: enjoyable things, were irrevocably damned to everlasting
torments. They were the self-appointed confidants of God's
mockery of his own creation. So at any rate they stick in my
mind. Vaguer, and yet hardly less agreeable than this cosmic
jest, this coming "Yah, clever!" and general serving out and
"showing up" of the lucky, the bold, and the cheerful, was their
own predestination to Glory.
"There is a Fountain, filled with Blood
Drawn from Emmanuel's Veins,"
so they sang. I hear the drone and wheeze of that hymn now. I
hated them with the bitter uncharitable condemnation of boyhood,
|
