| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: for apprehending the correlation between remote history and the facts
of the present and of the future. In 1831, he told me exactly what
would and did happen--the murders, the conspiracies, the ascendency of
the Jews, the difficulty of doing anything in France, the scarcity of
talent in the higher circles, and the abundance of intellect in the
lowest ranks, where the finest courage is smothered under cigar ashes.
What was to become of him? His parents wished him to be a doctor. But
if he were a doctor, must he not wait twenty years for a practice? You
know what he did? No? Well, he is a doctor; but he left France, he is
in Asia. At this moment he is perhaps sinking under fatigue in a
desert, or dying of the lashes of a barbarous horde--or perhaps he is
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: from a gigantic and ferocious beast.
As I backed along the ledge I soon was past the mouth
of the cave, where I no longer could see those fearful
flaming eyes, but an instant later I caught sight of the
fiendish face of a Sagoth as it warily advanced beyond
the cliff's turn on the far side of the cave's mouth.
As the fellow saw me he leaped along the ledge in pursuit,
and after him came as many of his companions as could
crowd upon each other's heels. At the same time the beast
emerged from the cave, so that he and the Sagoths came
face to face upon that narrow ledge.
At the Earth's Core |
