| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: know no fear they were not at all awed.
Seeing that they were determined to give battle, I
leaned over the rail of the Sari and brought the im-
perial battle-squadron of the Emperor of Pellucidar into
action for the first time in the history of a world. In other
and simpler words, I fired my revolver at the nearest
canoe.
The effect was magical. A warrior rose from his knees,
threw his paddle aloft, stiffened into rigidity for an
instant, and then toppled overboard.
The others ceased paddling, and, with wide eyes,
Pellucidar |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: 'There now, when the snow covers us up, good folk will see the
shafts and dig us out,' he said, slapping his mittens together
and putting them on. 'That's what the old folk taught us!'
Vasili Andreevich meanwhile had unfastened his coat, and
holding its skirts up for shelter, struck one sulphur match
after another on the steel box. But his hands trembled, and
one match after another either did not kindle or was blown out
by the wind just as he was lifting it to the cigarette. At
last a match did burn up, and its flame lit up for a moment the
fur of his coat, his hand with the gold ring on the bent
forefinger, and the snow-sprinkled oat-straw that stuck out
Master and Man |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Sara Lee rather deplored the event - in her own mind, of course, for in
her small circle young unmarried women accepted the major events of life
without question, and certainly without conversation. She never, for
instance, allowed her Uncle James, with whom she lived, to see her
working at the afghan; and even her Aunt Harriet had supposed it to be a
sweater until it assumed uncompromising proportions.
Sara Lee's days, up to the twentieth of December, 1914, had been much
alike. In the mornings she straightened up her room, which she had
copied from one in a woman's magazine, with the result that it gave
somehow the impression of a baby's bassinet, being largely dotted Swiss
and ribbon. Yet in a way it was a perfect setting for Sara Lee herself.
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: that home that shall be ours? Oh, very hard I will labour, for him and for
my children, in the long years to come. But I cannot stop to talk to you
now. Far off, over the hum of my spinning-wheel, I hear the voices of my
children calling, and I must hurry on. Do you ask me why I do not seek for
labour whose hands are full to bursting? Who will give folk to the nation
if I do not?"
Such would have been our answer in Europe in the ages of the past, if asked
the question why we were contented with our field of labour and sought no
other. Man had his work; we had ours. We knew that we upbore our world on
our shoulders; and that through the labour of our hands it was sustained
and strengthened--and we were contented.
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