| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: after having become the mother of ten children, looked as young and fresh
as on the day when she had first come to the village.
One night, after the children had gone to sleep, O-Yuki was sewing by the
light of a paper lamp; and Minokichi, watching her, said:--
"To see you sewing there, with the light on your face, makes me think of a
strange thing that happened when I was a lad of eighteen. I then saw
somebody as beautiful and white as you are now -- indeed, she was very like
you."...
Without lifting her eyes from her work, O-Yuki responded:--
"Tell me about her... Where did you see her?
Then Minokichi told her about the terrible night in the ferryman's hut,--
 Kwaidan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison
and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians,
in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of
existence in a war of extermination waged by European immi-
grants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of
mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same
spirit?
The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with
amazing subtlety--their mathematical learning is evidently
far in excess of ours--and to have carried out their prepara-
tions with a well-nigh perfect unanimity. Had our instru-
 War of the Worlds |