| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: There lies our only hope of even temporary escape; there
we may find a cave or a narrow ledge which two may defend
for ever against this motley, unarmed horde."
Together we raced across the scarlet sward, I timing my
speed that I might not outdistance my slower companion. We
had, perhaps, three hundred yards to cover between our
boulder and the cliffs, and then to search out a suitable
shelter for our stand against the terrifying things that were
pursuing us.
They were rapidly overhauling us when Tars Tarkas cried
to me to hasten ahead and discover, if possible, the sanctuary
The Gods of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: stern battle against want and hostile circumstances.
Among the throng, too, came another personage, who, with certain
points of similarity to Lawyer Giles, had many more of
difference. It was the village doctor; a man of some fifty years,
whom, at an earlier period of his life, we introduced as paying a
professional visit to Ethan Brand during the latter's supposed
insanity. He was now a purple-visaged, rude, and brutal, yet
half-gentlemanly figure, with something wild, ruined, and
desperate in his talk, and in all the details of his gesture and
manners. Brandy possessed this man like an evil spirit, and made
him as surly and savage as a wild beast, and as miserable as a
The Snow Image |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: patience: concluding that this state only was happiness, and that
this happiness was in every one's power.
Rasselas listened to him with the veneration due to the
instructions of a superior being, and waiting for him at the door,
humbly implored the liberty of visiting so great a master of true
wisdom. The lecturer hesitated a moment, when Rasselas put a purse
of gold into his hand, which he received with a mixture of joy and
wonder.
"I have found," said the Prince at his return to Imlac, "a man who
can teach all that is necessary to be known; who, from the unshaken
throne of rational fortitude, looks down on the scenes of life
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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 Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: see coming to fire his pistol at you point blank.
"You yourself, my dear boy, are clever enough to make
acquaintance before long with the odious and incessant warfare
waged by mediocrity against the superior man. If you should drop
five-and-twenty louis one day, you will be accused of gambling on
the next, and your best friends will report that you have lost
twenty-five thousand. If you have a headache, you will be
considered mad. If you are a little hasty, no one can live with
you. If, to make a stand against this armament of pigmies, you
collect your best powers, your best friends will cry out that you
want to have everything, that you aim at domineering, at tyranny.
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