| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: "Yes," responded Ford, carrying the lamp to that part
of the wall at which he and his son had, the evening before,
proved the escape of gas.
The old miner's arm trembled whilst he tried to hoist the lamp up.
"Take my place, Harry," said he.
Harry took the stick, and successively presented the lamp to the different
fissures in the rock; but he shook his head, for of that slight crackling
peculiar to escaping fire-damp he heard nothing. There was no flame.
Evidently not a particle of gas was escaping through the rock.
"Nothing!" cried Ford, clenching his fist with a gesture rather
of anger than disappointment.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: that rock like a galley-slave to his ball; watching through twenty
years for shell-fish to earn a living, and sustained in his patience
by a single sentiment. How many hours wasted on a lonely shore! How
many hopes defeated by a change of weather! He was hanging there to a
granite rock, his arm extended like that of an Indian fakir, while his
father, sitting in their hovel, awaited, in silence and darkness, a
meal of the coarsest bread and shell-fish, if the sea permitted.
"Do you ever drink wine?" I asked.
"Three or four times a year," he replied.
"Well, you shall drink it to-day,--you and your father; and we will
send you some white bread."
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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 Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: had taken place on the 20th. Muller soon found the name he was
looking for, "Forest Councillor Leo Kniepp," in the list of guests
at the Hotel Imperial. The detective went at once to the Hotel
Imperial, where he was already well known. It cost him little time
and trouble to discover what he wished to know, the reason for the
Councillor's visit to the capital.
Kniepp had asked for the address of a goldsmith, and had been
directed to one of the shops which had the best reputation in the
city. He had been in the capital altogether for about twenty-four
hours. He had the manner and appearance of a man suffering under
some terrible blow.
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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 Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: exclamation and started at a run toward the hut. "Wait there,"
she called over her shoulder. "I will fetch the spear that he
left
me."
Smith-Oldwick saw the raking talons of the panther search-
ing for the flesh of the man and the man on his part straining
every muscle and using every artifice to keep his body out of
range of them. The muscles of his arms knotted under the
brown hide. The veins stood out upon his neck and forehead
as with ever-increasing power he strove to crush the life from
the great cat. The ape-man's teeth were fastened in the back
Tarzan the Untamed |
