| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: something substantial enough to support my weight and that of
Nobs as well. I had gotten well over the area of the wreck when
not a half-dozen yards ahead of me a lifeboat shot bow foremost
out of the ocean almost its entire length to flop down upon its
keel with a mighty splash. It must have been carried far below,
held to its mother ship by a single rope which finally parted to
the enormous strain put upon it. In no other way can I account
for its having leaped so far out of the water--a beneficent
circumstance to which I doubtless owe my life, and that of
another far dearer to me than my own. I say beneficent
circumstance even in the face of the fact that a fate far more
The Land that Time Forgot |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: a fact, that plots and conspiracies against despotic rulers are
oftenest hatched by those who most of all pretend to love them.[48]
[43] "The 'innere Unterhaltung'"; the {oarismos}. Cf. Milton, "P. L.":
With thee conversing, I forget all time.
[44] Cf. Ter. "Andr." iii. 3. 23, "amantium irae amoris
intergratiost."
[45] "To make booty of."
[46] For {aptesthai} L. & S. cf. Plat. "Laws," 840 A; Aristot. "H. A."
v. 14. 27; Ep. 1 Cor. vii. 1.
[47] Reading {au}. "If we do know anything it is this, that," etc.
[48] Or, "do oftenest issue from treacherous make-believe of warmest
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