| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: apricot trees."
To which Arissa: "Really? Oh, Perce." When she pronounced his name,
the young maiden sighed and a glisten appeared in one or both eyes.
Well, from here the story gets pretty mushy, so we'd better make it
short. This delightful couple soon held hands; they discovered anon
that their lips fit together pretty well, Arissa's ten years' worth
of plans were miraculously cancelled, and Sir Percival finally asked
the Big Question, to which Arissa replied, "Well, okay."
And so they were married and lived happily ever after, with Arissa
often telling Sir Percival how she had secretly loved him from the
first time she saw him, while Sir Percival, each time he kissed
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Upon the tainted Tropic seas -
The attendant sharks that chew the cud -
The abhorred scuppers spouting blood -
The untended dead, the Tropic sun -
The thunder of the murderous gun -
The cut-throat crew - the Captain's curse -
The tempest blustering worse and worse -
These have I known and these can stand,
But you - I settle out of hand!'
Out flashed the cutlass, down went Ben
Dead and rotten, there and then.
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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 The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: horrified beneath the mesmeric gaze of a great serpent,
the girl watched the approach of the man. Her hands were free,
the Swedes having secured her with a length of ancient slave
chain fastened at one end to an iron collar padlocked about her
neck and at the other to a long stake driven deep into the ground.
Slowly Meriem shrank inch by inch toward the opposite end of
the tent. Malbihn followed her. His hands were extended and
his fingers half-opened--claw-like--to seize her. His lips were
parted, and his breath came quickly, pantingly.
The girl recalled Jenssen's instructions to call him should
Malbihn molest her; but Jenssen had gone into the jungle to hunt.
The Son of Tarzan |
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 A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether
stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it
will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.
I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of
the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed,
twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one
fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep,
black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are
seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded
by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve
four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year
A Modest Proposal |
