| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: the most violent excitement.
One day, the 30th of September, at 3:47 P.M., a telegram,
transmitted by cable from Valentia (Ireland) to Newfoundland and
the American Mainland, arrived at the address of President Barbicane.
The president tore open the envelope, read the dispatch, and,
despite his remarkable powers of self-control, his lips turned
pale and his eyes grew dim, on reading the twenty words of
this telegram.
Here is the text of the dispatch, which figures now in the
archives of the Gun Club:
FRANCE, PARIS,
From the Earth to the Moon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: phobia, would have been madness; and I let it go as it stood.
My grandfather is good enough for me, these days. I do not
work any less; on the whole, if anything, a little more. But
it is different.
The slips go to you in four packets; I hope they are what
they should be, but do not think so. I am at a pitch of
discontent with fiction in all its form - or my forms - that
prevents me being able to be even interested. I have had to
stop all drink; smoking I am trying to stop also. It annoys
me dreadfully: and yet if I take a glass of claret, - I have
a headache the next day! O, and a good headache too; none of
|
| 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 Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: if it is possible for us to interfere with the work of the local,
authorities in G-"
The little old lady gave her eyes a last hasty dab with a dainty
handkerchief and raised her head again, fighting for self-control.
She was a quaint little figure, with soft grey hair drawn back
smoothly from a gentle-featured face in which each wrinkle seemed
the seal of some loving thought for others. Her bonnet and gown
were of excellent material in delicate soft colours, but cut in the
style of an earlier decade. The capable lines of her thin little
hands showed through the fabric of her grey gloves. Her whole
attitude bore the impress of one who had adventured far beyond the
|
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 Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: cities from which he had had to flee. There was hatred of law,
hatred of order, hatred of everything. Every moment of the man's
waking life was filled with morbid thought of hatred--he had
become mentally as he was physically in outward appearance,
the personification of the blighting emotion of Hate. He had
little or nothing to do with the men who had rescued him.
He was too weak to work and too morose for company, and so
they quickly left him alone to his own devices.
The Marjorie W. had been chartered by a syndicate of wealthy
manufacturers, equipped with a laboratory and a staff of scientists,
and sent out to search for some natural product which the
The Son of Tarzan |
