| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: It was kind of by accident, but it's all right."
"You've been like a son to me," said old "Kiowa," trembling.
"Tia Juana told me all about it," said Ranse. "She told me how you
adopted me when I was knee-high to a puddle duck out of a wagon train
of prospectors that was bound West. And she told me how the kid--your
own kid, you know--got lost or was run away with. And she said it was
the same day that the sheep-shearers got on a bender and left the
ranch."
"Our boy strayed from the house when he was two years old," said the
old man. "And then along came those emigrant wagons with a youngster
they didn't want; and we took you. I never intended you to know,
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: his hand upon my shoulder.
"Man of another world," he said, "I believe you.
Lips may lie, but when the heart speaks through the eyes
it tells only the truth. Your heart has spoken to me.
I know now that you meant no affront to Dian the Beautiful.
She is not of my tribe; but her mother is my sister.
She does not know it--her mother was stolen by Dian's
father who came with many others of the tribe of Amoz
to battle with us for our women--the most beautiful women
of Pellucidar. Then was her father king of Amoz, and her
mother was daughter of the king of Sari--to whose power I,
At the Earth's Core |
