| 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: we had ample depth, I ran the U-33 between head-lands into as
pretty a landlocked harbor as sailormen could care to see, with
good water right up to within a few yards of the shore. As we
cruised slowly along, two of the boches again saw what they
believed to be a man, or manlike creature, watching us from a
fringe of trees a hundred yards inland, and shortly after we
discovered the mouth of a small stream emptying into the bay:
It was the first stream we had found since leaving the river, and
I at once made preparations to test its water. To land, it would
be necessary to run the U-33 close in to the shore, at least as
close as we could, for even these waters were infested, though,
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 Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: Soon the road that I was following split, after the fashion of the
country, into three or four in a piece of rocky meadow. Since
Modestine had shown such a fancy for beaten roads, I tried her
instinct in this predicament. But the instinct of an ass is what
might be expected from the name; in half a minute she was
clambering round and round among some boulders, as lost a donkey as
you would wish to see. I should have camped long before had I been
properly provided; but as this was to be so short a stage, I had
brought no wine, no bread for myself, and little over a pound for
my lady friend. Add to this, that I and Modestine were both
handsomely wetted by the showers. But now, if I could have found
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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 Emma by Jane Austen: and when Mr. Elton himself arrived to triumph in his happy prospects,
and circulate the fame of her merits, there was very little more
for him to do, than to tell her Christian name, and say whose
music she principally played.
Mr. Elton returned, a very happy man. He had gone away rejected
and mortified--disappointed in a very sanguine hope, after a series
of what appeared to him strong encouragement; and not only losing
the right lady, but finding himself debased to the level of a very
wrong one. He had gone away deeply offended--he came back engaged
to another--and to another as superior, of course, to the first,
as under such circumstances what is gained always is to what is lost.
Emma |
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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: told me,-- made me different frum other folks."
She stopped a moment, with a dumb, hungry look in her eyes.
After a while she looked at Margret furtively, with a pitiful
eagerness.
"Miss Marg'et, I think there BE something wrong in my head. Did
YOH ever notice it?"
Margret put her hand kindly on the broad, misshapen forehead.
"Something is wrong everywhere, Lois," she said, absently.
She did not see the slow sigh with which the girl smothered down
whatever hope had risen just then, listened half-attentive as the
huckster maundered on.
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
