| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: With either one of the two alive Thuvia was in as great
danger as though both lived--it must be both!
As Vas Kor descended to the ground Carthoris boldly
followed him, nor did any attempt to halt him, thinking,
doubtless, that he was one of the party.
After him came Kar Komak and the Dusarian warrior who
had been detailed to duty upon the Thuria. Carthoris
walked close to the left side of the latter. Now they came
to the dense shadow under the side of the Thuria. It was
very dark there, so that they had to grope for the ladder.
Kar Komak preceded the Dusarian. The latter reached
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: gravely, his head bent. And square after square it was borne in
on him what a precarious future stretched before this girl beside
him, how very slender her resources, how more than dubious the
outcome.
Poverty, which had only stimulated Peter Byrne in the past, ate
deep into his soul that night.
Epochmaking as the walk had been, seeing that it had
reestablished a friendship and made a working basis for future
comradely relations, they were back at the corner of the
Alserstrasse before ten. As they turned in at the little street,
a man, lurching somewhat, almost collided with Harmony. He was a
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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 Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: my back upon the sea and faced the sandhills. There was no sight or
sound of man; the sun shone on the wet sand and the dry, the wind blew
in the bents, the gulls made a dreary piping. As I passed higher up
the beach, the sand-lice were hopping nimbly about the stranded
tangles. The devil any other sight or sound in that unchancy place.
And yet I knew there were folk there, observing me, upon some secret
purpose. They were no soldiers, or they would have fallen on and taken
us ere now; doubtless they were some common rogues hired for my
undoing, perhaps to kidnap, perhaps to murder me outright. From the
position of those engaged, the first was the more likely; from what I
knew of their character and ardency in this business, I thought the
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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 A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not said half
as much, - and once or twice said, - C'EST BIEN DIT. So I rested
my cause there - and determined to say no more about it.
The Count led the discourse: we talk'd of indifferent things, - of
books, and politics, and men; - and then of women. - God bless them
all! said I, after much discourse about them - there is not a man
upon earth who loves them so much as I do: after all the foibles I
have seen, and all the satires I have read against them, still I
love them; being firmly persuaded that a man, who has not a sort of
affection for the whole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single
one as he ought.
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