| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: that I had ever seen. I recall that it was then I first
regretted that she was only a little untutored savage and
so far beneath me in the scale of evolution.
Her first act was to beckon me to follow her outside, and there
she pointed to the explanation of our rescue from the bear--a
huge saber-tooth tiger, its fine coat and its flesh torn to
ribbons, lying dead a few paces from our cave, and beside it,
equally mangled, and disemboweled, was the carcass of a huge
cave-bear. To have had one's life saved by a saber-tooth
tiger, and in the twentieth century into the bargain, was an
experience that was to say the least unique; but it had
The People That Time Forgot |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: me into the garden. The Count, for the sake of appearances, came
as far as the threshold.
"Don't go, don't go!" called he. "Don't trouble yourselves in the
least," but he did not offer to accompany us.
We three--the canon, the housemaid, and I--hurried through the
garden walks and over the bowling-green in the park, shouting,
listening for an answer, growing more uneasy every moment. As we
hurried along, I told the story of the fatal accident, and
discovered how strongly the maid was attached to her mistress,
for she took my secret dread far more seriously than the canon.
We went along by the pools of water; all over the park we went;
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: vain--facts. And so, year after year, was realised that scene which
stands engraved in the frontispiece of his great book--where, in the
little quaint Cinquecento theatre, saucy scholars, reverend doctors,
gay gentlemen, and even cowled monks, are crowding the floor,
peeping over each other's shoulders, hanging on the balustrades;
while in the centre, over his "subject"--which one of those same
cowled monks knew but too well--stands young Vesalius, upright,
proud, almost defiant, as one who knows himself safe in the
impregnable citadel of fact; and in his hand the little blade of
steel, destined--because wielded in obedience to the laws of nature,
which are the laws of God--to work more benefit for the human race
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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 A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: helpful. Do you think, Mrs. Allonby, I shall ever meet the Ideal
Man? Or are there more than one?
MRS. ALLONBY. There are just four in London, Lady Stutfield.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Oh, my dear!
MRS. ALLONBY. [Going over to her.] What has happened? Do tell
me.
LADY HUNSTANTON [in a low voice] I had completely forgotten that
the American young lady has been in the room all the time. I am
afraid some of this clever talk may have shocked her a little.
MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, that will do her so much good!
LADY HUNSTANTON. Let us hope she didn't understand much. I think
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