| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: crumpled like an empty fur and lay, a shrunken heap, upon the
floor. Tara of Helium stooped and wiped her blade upon his
harness.
Lan-O, wide-eyed, looked with horror upon the corpse. "For this
we shall both die," she cried.
"And who would live a slave in Manator?" asked Tara of Helium.
"I am not so brave as thou," said the slave girl, "and life is
sweet and there is always hope."
"Life is sweet," agreed Tara of Helium, "but honor is sacred. But
do not fear. When they come I shall tell them the truth--that you
had no hand in this and no opportunity to prevent it."
The Chessmen of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: escaped the good sisters at Holy Cross, had she been told the story
of Ruth, the Moabitess, who renounced her very God for the sake of
a stranger woman from a strange land. Jees Uck had learned only
one way of renouncing, and that was with a club as the dynamic
factor, in much the same manner as a dog is made to renounce a
stolen marrow-bone. Yet, when the time came, she proved herself
capable of rising to the height of the fair-faced royal races and
of renouncing in right regal fashion.
So this is the story of Jees Uck, which is also the story of Neil
Bonner, and Kitty Bonner, and a couple of Neil Bonner's progeny.
Jees Uck was of a swart-skinned breed, it is true, but she was not
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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 Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: "If at last you have a notion that I mean what I am saying,
Do I seem to tell you nothing when I tell you I shall try?
If you save me, and I lose him -- I don't know -- it won't much matter.
I dare say that I've lied enough, but now I do not lie."
"Do you fancy me the one man who has waited and said nothing
While a wife has dragged an old infatuation from a tomb?
Give the thing a little air and it will vanish into ashes.
There you are -- piff! presto!"
"When I came into this room,
It seemed as if I saw the place, and you there at your table,
As you are now at this moment, for the last time in my life;
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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 New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: COME, here is adieu to the city
And hurrah for the country again.
The broad road lies before me
Watered with last night's rain.
The timbered country woos me
With many a high and bough;
And again in the shining fallows
The ploughman follows the plough.
The whole year's sweat and study,
And the whole year's sowing time,
Comes now to the perfect harvest,
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