| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: your tongue? Why, man, do you know what this life is? There
are two squads of us - the lions and the lambs. If you're a
lamb, you'll come to lie upon these tables like Gray or Jane
Galbraith; if you're a lion, you'll live and drive a horse
like me, like K-, like all the world with any wit or courage.
You're staggered at the first. But look at K-! My dear
fellow, you're clever, you have pluck. I like you, and K-
likes you. You were born to lead the hunt; and I tell you,
on my honour and my experience of life, three days from now
you'll laugh at all these scarecrows like a High School boy
at a farce.'
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: is something about his eyes--a fleeting expression which
I cannot describe, but which when I see it gives me a
very uncanny feeling."
The girl laughed. "You are a silly dear, mamma," she said.
"I suppose so, but I am sorry that we have not poor Mr.
Caldwell for company instead."
"And I, too," replied her daughter.
Monsieur Thuran became a frequent visitor at the home of
Hazel Strong's uncle in Cape Town. His attentions were very
marked, but they were so punctiliously arranged to meet
the girl's every wish that she came to depend upon him more
The Return of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: Besides, it would be well for William and James to attend divine
service. She could not spare James, and thought William had better
clean the harness, by way of penance.
The morning proved to be warm and sunny. I donned a muslin dress
of home manufacture and my own bonnet, and started for church. I
had walked but a few paces when the consciousness of being *free*
and *alone* struck me. I halted, looked about me, and concluded
that I would not go to church, but walk into the fields. I had no
knowledge of the whereabouts of the fields; but I walked straight
forward, and after a while came upon some barren fields, cropping
with coarse rocks, along which ran a narrow road. I turned into it,
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: she had imagined it would, and the lines of perplexity between
his eyes had never been there in his engineering days. Then he
had often looked fagged to the verge of illness, but the native
demon of "worry" had never branded his brow. Yet the few pages
he had so far read to her--the introduction, and a synopsis of
the opening chapter--gave evidences of a firm possession of his
subject, and a deepening confidence in his powers.
The fact threw her into deeper perplexity, since, now that he had
done with "business" and its disturbing contingencies, the one
other possible element of anxiety was eliminated. Unless it were
his health, then? But physically he had gained since they had
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