| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: and ripping up the pigs; in fact, you might say he wallowed in blood.
'He'll be a famous soldier,' said Cambremer, 'he's got the taste of
blood.' Now, you see," said the fisherman, "I can look back and
remember all that--and Cambremer, too," he added, after a pause. "By
the time Jacques Cambremer was fifteen or sixteen years of age he had
come to be--what shall I say?--a shark. He amused himself at Guerande,
and was after the girls at Savenay. Then he wanted money. He robbed
his mother, who didn't dare say a word to his father. Cambremer was an
honest man who'd have tramped fifty miles to return two sous that any
one had overpaid him on a bill. At last, one day the mother was robbed
of everything. During one of his father's fishing-trips Jacques
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: When Christmas Day dawned the Daemon of Malice was guarding the
prisoner, and his tongue was sharper than that of any of the others.
"The children are waking up, Santa!" he cried. "They are waking up to
find their stockings empty! Ho, ho! How they will quarrel, and wail,
and stamp their feet in anger! Our caves will be full today, old
Santa! Our caves are sure to be full!"
But to this, as to other like taunts, Santa Claus answered nothing.
He was much grieved by his capture, it is true; but his courage did
not forsake him. And, finding that the prisoner would not reply to
his jeers, the Daemon of Malice presently went away, and sent the
Daemon of Repentance to take his place.
A Kidnapped Santa Claus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: to a money-lending wardrobe dealer to sell such of his clothing as he
could spare. He was just receiving the price with an uneasy air, after
long chaffering, when the stranger lady passed and recognized him.
" 'Once for all,' cried he to the bewildered wardrobe dealer, 'I tell
you I am not going to take your trumpet!'
"He pointed to a huge, much-dinted musical instrument, hanging up
outside against a background of uniforms, civil and military. Then,
proudly and impetuously, he followed the lady.
"From that great day of the trumpet these two understood one another
to admiration. Charles Edward's ideas on the subject of love are as
sound as possible. According to him, a man cannot love twice, there is
|
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 Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: tion of what it would mean if Numa should suddenly enter
the tunnel in front of him; but Numa did not appear and the
ape-man emerged at length into the open and stood erect,
finding himself in a rocky cleft whose precipitous walls rose
almost sheer on every hand, the tunnel from the gorge passing
through the cliff and forming a passageway from the outer
world into a large pocket or gulch entirely inclosed by steep
walls of rock. Except for the small passageway from the
gorge, there was no other entrance to the gulch which was
some hundred feet in length and about fifty in width and
appeared to have been worn from the rocky cliff by the falling
Tarzan the Untamed |
