| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: The Prince to win her!'
'Then follow me, the Prince,'
I answered, 'each be hero in his turn!
Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream.--
Heroic seems our Princess as required--
But something made to suit with Time and place,
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade,
And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments
For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all--
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: the Yenisei. They had been cut off, as had been Michael,
before being able even to reach the Dinka, and had been
obliged to go back to Lake Baikal.
They had been in the place for three days in much per-
plexity, when the raft arrived. The fugitives' plan was
explained to them. There was certainly a chance that they
might be able to pass under cover of the night, and penetrate
into Irkutsk. They resolved to make the attempt.
Alcide directly communicated with the old boatman, and
asked a passage for himself and his companion, offering to
pay anything he demanded, whatever it might be.
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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 Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: garment, evidently a sister to the small fishermen. Her keen
black eyes set in a dusky face glanced sharply and suspiciously
at the group as she clambered over the wet embankment, and it
seemed the drizzling mist grew colder, the sobbing wind more
pronounced in its prophetic wail. Athanasia rose suddenly. "Let
us go," she said; "the eternal feminine has spoiled it all."
The bayou flows as calmly, as darkly, as full of hidden passions
as ever. On a night years after, the moon was shining upon it
with a silvery tenderness that seemed brighter, more caressingly
lingering than anywhere within the old city. Behind, there rose
the spires and towers; before, only the reeds, green now, and
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
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 Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs: note that mein Herr spoke too perfect German for a foreigner.
Were I in mein Herr's place, I should speak mostly the
English, and, too, I should shave off the 'full, reddish-brown
beard.'"
Whereupon the storekeeper turned hastily back into his
shop, leaving Barney Custer of Beatrice, Nebraska, U.S.A.,
to wonder if all the inhabitants of Lutha were afflicted with
a mental disorder similar to that of the unfortunate ruler.
"I don't wonder," soliloquized the young man, "that he ad-
vised me to shave off this ridiculous crop of alfalfa. Hang
election bets, anyway; if things had gone half right I
The Mad King |
