| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: well as a spoken language and besides the art of weaving cloth
possessed that of paper-making. Could it be that such grotesque
beings represented the high culture of the human race within the
boundaries of Caspak? Had natural selection produced during the
countless ages of Caspakian life a winged monstrosity that
represented the earthly pinnacle of man's evolution?
Bradley had noted something of the obvious indications of a
gradual evolution from ape to spearman as exemplified by the
several overlapping races of Alalus, club-men and hatchet-men
that formed the connecting links between the two extremes with
which he, had come in contact. He had heard of the Krolus and
 Out of Time's Abyss |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: seemed exaggerated.
"Look here, my sons, I'll show you how we are DONE. It is not about
myself, but about my opposite neighbour, Madame Mahuchet, a ladies'
shoemaker. I had loaned money to a countess, a woman who has too many
passions for her means,--lives in a fine apartment filled with
splendid furniture, and makes, as we say, a devil of a show with her
high and mighty airs. She owed three hundred francs to her shoemaker,
and was giving a dinner no later than yesterday. The shoemaker, who
heard of the dinner from the cook, came to see me; we got excited, and
she wanted to make a row; but I said: 'My dear Madame Mahuchet, what
good will that do? you'll only get yourself hated. It is much better
|