| 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: "You wish to return to Lothar?" asked Carthoris.
"No!" replied Kar Komak quickly. "I have no love for Tario.
Being a creature of his mind, I know him too well.
He is cruel and tyrannical--a master I have no desire to serve.
Now that he has succeeded in accomplishing my permanent
materialization, he will be unbearable, and he will go on
until he has filled Lothar with his creatures.
I wonder if he has succeeded as well with the maid of Lothar."
"I thought there were no women there," said Carthoris.
"In a hidden apartment in the palace of Tario," replied
Kar Komak, "the jeddak has maintained the suggestion of
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: and fall with a tremendous noise on the beacon-house, yet such
seas were not likely to make any impression on a mass of solid
masonry, containing about 1400 tons,
[Wednesday, 30th Aug.]
The whole of the artificers left the rock at mid-day,
when the tender made sail for Arbroath, which she reached
about six p.m. The vessel being decorated with colours, and
having fired a salute of three guns on approaching the
harbour, the workyard artificers, with a multitude of people,
assembled at the harbour, when mutual cheering and
congratulations took place between those afloat and those on
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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 Hellenica by Xenophon: forty sail. That officer set sail, but abstained from bringing aid to
Rhodes, and for good reasons. In Rhodes the Lacedaemonian party had
hold of the fortress, and would be out of reach of his attack,
especially as Teleutias was close at hand to aid them with his fleet.
On the other hand, his own friends ran no danger of succumbing to the
enemy, as they held the cities and were numerically much stronger, and
they had established their superiority in the field. Consequently he
made for the Hellespont, where, in the absence of any rival power, he
hoped to achieve some stroke of good fortune for his city. Thus, in
the first place, having detected the rivalries existing between
Medocus,[26] the king of the Odrysians, and Seuthes,[27] the rival
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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 The Underground City by Jules Verne: There, at the end of a light pier, floated a small steamboat,
named, as a matter of course, the Rob Roy. The travelers
immediately went on board; it was about to start. Loch Katrine
is only ten miles in length; its width never exceeds two miles.
The hills nearest it are full of a character peculiar to themselves.
"Here we are on this famous lake," said James Starr. "It has
been compared to an eel on account of its length and windings:
and justly so. They say that it never freezes.
I know nothing about that, but what we want to think of is,
that here are the scenes of the adventures in the Lady of
the Lake. I believe, if friend Jack looked about him carefully,
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