| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: they fared in it, and what they thought of it, and when (if ever)
they should see again the silver wind-breaks run among the olives,
and the stone-pine stand guard upon Etruscan sepulchres.
Upon any American, the strangeness of this incident is somewhat
lost. For as far back as he goes in his own land, he will find
some alien camping there; the Cornish miner, the French or Mexican
half-blood, the negro in the South, these are deep in the woods and
far among the mountains. But in an old, cold, and rugged country
such as mine, the days of immigration are long at an end; and away
up there, which was at that time far beyond the northernmost
extreme of railways, hard upon the shore of that ill-omened strait
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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 Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs: nor for you.
"I am sorry that it is so. I am sorry that I should
have to be the one to tell you; but it is better that
you know it now from a friend than that you meet the
bitter truth when you least expected it, and possibly
from the lips of one like Miss Maxon for whom you might
have formed a hopeless affection."
As von Horn spoke the expression on the young man's
face became more and more hopeless, and when he had
ceased he dropped his head into his open palms, sitting
quiet and motionless as a carven statue. No sob shook
The Monster Men |
