| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "He is a Kro-lu."
And then I saw him, the first fully developed Krolu I had seen.
He was a fine-looking savage, tall and straight with a regal carriage.
To-mar was a handsome fellow; but this Kro-lu showed plainly in
his every physical attribute a higher plane of evolution.
While To-mar was just entering the Kro-lu sphere, this man,
it seemed to me, must be close indeed to the next stage of
his development, which would see him an envied Galu.
"They will kill him?" I whispered to Ajor.
"The dance of death," she replied, and I shuddered, so recently
had I escaped the same fate. It seemed cruel that one who must
The People That Time Forgot |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: peculiarly precious to men sensitive like himself. I often sought
that counsel, and, with your permission, will illustrate its
character by one or two typical instances.
In 1855, I was appointed examiner under the Council for Military
Education. At that time, as indeed now, I entertained strong
convictions as to the enormous utility of physical science to
officers of artillery and engineers, and whenever opportunity
offered, I expressed this conviction without reserve. I did not
think the recognition, though considerable, accorded to physical
science in those examinations at all proportionate to its
importance; and this probably rendered me more jealous than I
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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 Herland by Charlotte Gilman: present, our major interest was not at all in the subject matter of
our talk, but in the audience.
Girls--hundreds of them--eager, bright-eyed, attentive
young faces; crowding questions, and, I regret to say, an
increasing inability on our part to answer them effectively.
Our special guides, who were on the platform with us, and
sometimes aided in clarifying a question or, oftener, an answer,
noticed this effect, and closed the formal lecture part of the
evening rather shortly.
"Our young women will be glad to meet you," Somel suggested,
"to talk with you more personally, if you are willing?"
Herland |
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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: and for the ear of good society; I, with the emphasis and
technicalities of the obtrusive student. But the point, I may
reply, is not merely to amuse the public, but to offer helpful
advice to the young writer. And the young writer will not so much
be helped by genial pictures of what an art may aspire to at its
highest, as by a true idea of what it must be on the lowest terms.
The best that we can say to him is this: Let him choose a motive,
whether of character or passion; carefully construct his plot so
that every incident is an illustration of the motive, and every
property employed shall bear to it a near relation of congruity or
contrast; avoid a sub-plot, unless, as sometimes in Shakespeare,
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