| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: Bethesda before the sullen heave of the crest of a wave lapped
over the edge and made me run.
Mark the nature of the human soul! I had begun with awe, not to
say terror, for this was my first experience of such things. I
stepped back from the banks of the Riverside Geyser,
saying:--"Pooh! Is that all it can do?"
Yet for aught I knew, the whole thing might have blown up at a
minute's notice, she, he, or it being an arrangement of uncertain
temper.
We drifted on, up that miraculous valley. On either side of us
were hills from a thousand or fifteen hundred feet high, wooded
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: entirely inadequate against even the lesser carnivora of Caspak.
In a moment the three would charge! a futile shot would but tend
more greatly to enrage the one it chanced to hit; and then the
three would drag down the little human figure and tear it to pieces.
And maybe it was Lys! My heart stood still at the thought, but mind
and muscle responded to the quick decision I was forced to make.
There was but a single hope--a single chance--and I took it.
I raised my rifle to my shoulder and took careful aim. It was
a long shot, a dangerous shot, for unless one is accustomed to
it, shooting from a considerable altitude is most deceptive work.
There is, though, something about marksmanship which is quite
The Land that Time Forgot |
