| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: master, working as he pleased and when he pleased, and facing a
new adventure every hour!
Then, too, his health came back to him, all his lost youthful
vigor, his joy and power that he had mourned and forgotten!
It came with a sudden rush, bewildering him, startling him; it was
as if his dead childhood had come back to him, laughing and
calling! What with plenty to eat and fresh air and exercise that
was taken as it pleased him, he would waken from his sleep and
start off not knowing what to do with his energy, stretching his
arms, laughing, singing old songs of home that came back to him.
Now and then, of course, he could not help but think of little
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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 First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: walls of the tunnel scintillated like gems, ever and again the tunnel
expanded into a stalactitic cavern, or gave off branches that vanished
into darkness.
We seemed to be marching down that tunnel for a long time. "Trickle,
trickle," went the flowing light very softly, and our footfalls and their
echoes made an irregular paddle, paddle. My mind settled down to the
question of my chains. If I were to slip off one turn so, and then to
twist it so ...
If I tried to do it very gradually, would they see I was slipping my wrist
out of the looser turn? If they did, what would they do?
"Bedford," said Cavor, "it goes down. It keeps on going down."
The First Men In The Moon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: the store the spasm seized him again, and his body writhed
irresistibly away from her and rolled and curled on the floor.
Amos Pentley came and looked on with curious eyes.
"Oh, Amos!" she cried in an agony of apprehension and helplessness,
"him die, you think?" But Amos shrugged his shoulders and
continued to look on.
Bonner's body went slack, the tense muscles easing down and an
expression of relief coming into his face. "Quick!" he gritted
between his teeth, his mouth twisting with the on-coming of the
next spasm and with his effort to control it. "Quick, Jees Uck!
The medicine! Never mind! Drag me!"
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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 The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: at its foot. Up this pathway Tarzan hastened, and at
its upper end came out upon the rough top of a huge
granite bowlder.
A mile away lay the ruined city of Opar, its domes and
turrets bathed in the soft light of the equatorial moon.
Tarzan dropped his eyes to the ingot he had brought away
with him. For a moment he examined it by the moon's bright
rays, then he raised his head to look out upon the ancient
piles of crumbling grandeur in the distance.
"Opar," he mused, "Opar, the enchanted city of a dead
and forgotten past. The city of the beauties and the beasts.
The Return of Tarzan |
