| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: in surprise, too dumbfounded even to cry out, and then I
clubbed his rifle and felled him with a single mighty blow.
A moment later, I had burst into the room beyond. It was
empty!
I gazed about, mad with disappointment. Two doors opened
from this to other rooms. I ran to the nearer and listened.
Yes, voices were coming from beyond and one was a woman's,
level and cold and filled with scorn. There was no terror
in it. It was Victory's.
I turned the knob and pushed the door inward just in time to
see Menelek seize the girl and drag her toward the far end
Lost Continent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: those commandments thus: "I am sending you a ring made out of a piece of
shell.... During the battle of Budonviller I did away with four women and
seven young girls in five minutes. The Captain had told me to shoot these
French sows, but I preferred to run my bayonet through them"--private
Johann Wenger to his German sweetheart, dated Peronne, March 16, 1915.
Germany, whose newspaper the Cologne Volkszettung deplored the doings of
her Kultur on land and sea thus: "Much as we detest it as human beings
and as Christians, yet we exult in it as Germans."
Agreeable Germany!--whose Kaiser, if his fleet had been larger, would
have taken us by the scruff of the neck.
"Then Thou, Almighty One, send Thy lightnings!
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