| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: veloped the city -- a darkness that was accentuated for the
ape-man rather than relieved by the artificial lights which
immediately appeared in many of the windows visible to him.
Tarzan had noticed that the roofs of most of the buildings
were flat, the few exceptions being those of what he imagined
to be the more pretentious public structures. How this city
had come to exist in this forgotten part of unexplored Africa
the ape-man could not conceive. Better than another, he
realized something of the unsolved secrets of the Great Dark
Continent, enormous areas of which have as yet been un-
touched by the foot of civilized man. Yet he could scarce
Tarzan the Untamed |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: He is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre, but
he is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in the grate,
and hunger has made him faint."
"I will wait with you one night longer," said the Swallow, who
really had a good heart. "Shall I take him another ruby?"
"Alas! I have no ruby now," said the Prince; "my eyes are all that
I have left. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought
out of India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take
it to him. He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and
firewood, and finish his play."
"Dear Prince," said the Swallow, "I cannot do that"; and he began
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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 Symposium by Plato: me, but he rescued me and my arms; and he ought to have received the prize
of valour which the generals wanted to confer on me partly on account of my
rank, and I told them so, (this, again, Socrates will not impeach or deny),
but he was more eager than the generals that I and not he should have the
prize. There was another occasion on which his behaviour was very
remarkable--in the flight of the army after the battle of Delium, where he
served among the heavy-armed,--I had a better opportunity of seeing him
than at Potidaea, for I was myself on horseback, and therefore
comparatively out of danger. He and Laches were retreating, for the troops
were in flight, and I met them and told them not to be discouraged, and
promised to remain with them; and there you might see him, Aristophanes, as
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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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: scramble up among the vines. The slope, covered with green trailing
shoots, ends within about five feet of the house wall in a ditch-like
passage always damp and cold and full of strong growing green things,
fed by the drainage of the highly cultivated ground above, for rainy
weather washes down the manure into the garden on the terrace.
A vinedresser's cottage also leans against the western gable, and is
in some sort a continuation of the kitchen. Stone walls or espaliers
surround the property, and all sorts of fruit-trees are planted among
the vines; in short, not an inch of this precious soil is wasted. If
by chance man overlooks some dry cranny in the rocks, Nature puts in a
fig-tree, or sows wildflowers or strawberries in sheltered nooks among
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