| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: perpendicular granite cliffs, like plumes, deserted but verdant
reaches opening out, and valleys whose beauty seems the lovelier in
the dreamy distance.
As they passed the pretty hamlet of Gersau, one of the friends looked
for a long time at a wooden house which seemed to have been recently
built, enclosed by a paling, and standing on a promontory, almost
bathed by the waters. As the boat rowed past, a woman's head was
raised against the background of the room on the upper story of this
house, to admire the effect of the boat on the lake. One of the young
men met the glance thus indifferently given by the unknown fair.
"Let us stop here," said he to his friend. "We meant to make Lucerne
 Albert Savarus |
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 At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: seemed to me my last ounce of strength I ran the blade
through the ugly body of my foe.
Soundless, as it had fought, it died, and though weak from
pain and loss of blood, it was with an emotion of triumphant
pride that I stepped across its convulsively stiffening
corpse to snatch up the most potent secret of a world.
A single glance assured me it was the very thing that
Perry had described to me.
And as I grasped it did I think of what it meant to the
human race of Pellucidar--did there flash through my
mind the thought that countless generations of my own
 At the Earth's Core |