| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Mr. Nestor as follows:
Story true. Await me Algiers.
As fast as train and boat would carry me, I sped
toward my destination. For all those dragging days my
mind was a whirl of mad conjecture, of frantic hope,
of numbing fear.
The finding of the telegraph-instrument practically
assured me that David Innes had driven Perry's iron
mole back through the earth's crust to the buried world
of Pellucidar; but what adventures had befallen him
since his return?
Pellucidar |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: Solonet made a motion, somewhat too familiar, to Madame Evangelista,
inviting her to a private conference in the recess of a window. For
some minutes they talked to each other in a low voice, giving way now
and then to laughter,--no doubt to lessen in the minds of others the
importance of the conversation, in which Solonet was really
communicating to his sovereign lady the plan of battle.
"But," he said, as he ended, "will you have the courage to sell your
house?"
"Undoubtedly," she replied.
Madame Evangelista did not choose to tell her notary the motive of
this heroism, which struck him greatly. Solonet's zeal might have
|
