| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Bradley remained silent. So she loved An-Tak. He hadn't the
heart to tell her that An-Tak had died, or how.
At the door of Fosh-bal-soj's storeroom they halted to listen.
No sound came from within, and gently Bradley pushed open the door.
All was inky darkness as they entered; but presently their eyes
became accustomed to the gloom that was partially relieved by the
soft starlight without. The Englishman searched and found those
things for which he had come--two robes, two pairs of dead wings
and several lengths of fiber rope. One pair of the wings he
adjusted to the girl's shoulders by means of the rope. Then he
draped the robe about her, carrying the cowl over her head.
Out of Time's Abyss |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: little faint, and --"
"Eudora, you poor, darling girl!"
"And the Lancaster girls found out," continued Eudora, calmly.
"They gave me something to eat, and I suppose I ate as if I were
famished. I was."
"Eudora!"
"And they wanted to give me money, but I would not take it, and
they had been trying to find a laundress for their finer
linen--their old serving-woman was ill. They could find one for
the heavier things, but they are very particular, and I was sure
I could manage, and so I begged them to let me have the work, and
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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 Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: have in the tragedies of our friends. "Of course Paul isn't altogether to
blame, but this is what comes of his chasing after other women instead of
bearing his cross in a Christian way," she exulted.
He was too languid to respond as he desired. He said what was to be said
about the Christian bearing of crosses, and went out to clean the car. Dully,
patiently, he scraped linty grease from the drip-pan, gouged at the mud caked
on the wheels. He used up many minutes in washing his hands; scoured them with
gritty kitchen soap; rejoiced in hurting his plump knuckles. "Damn soft
hands--like a woman's. Aah!"
At dinner, when his wife began the inevitable, he bellowed, "I forbid any of
you to say a word about Paul! I'll 'tend to all the talking about this that's
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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 Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: take it; but in my mind it had been always a voluntary act, this
disclosure, it had been always I who unmasked myself and she who
listened--alone; and in this voluntariness and this privacy there
had been something which took from the shame of anticipation.
But here--here was no voluntary act on my part, no privacy,
nothing but shame. And I stood mute, convicted, speechless,
under her eyes--like the thing I was.
Yet if anything could have braced me it was Mademoiselle's voice
when she answered him.
'Go on, Monsieur,' she said calmly, 'you will have done the
sooner.'
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