| 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: we turned away our heads.
Arriving at the hotel, we noticed a billiard-table, and finding that
it was the only billiard-table in Croisic, we made our preparations to
leave during the night. The next day we went to Guerande. Pauline was
still sad, and I myself felt a return of that fever of the brain which
will destroy me. I was so cruelly tortured by the visions that came to
me of those three lives, that Pauline said at last,--
"Louis, write it all down; that will change the nature of the fever
within you."
So I have written you this narrative, dear uncle; but the shock of
such an event has made me lose the calmness I was beginning to gain
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: recollect where he was, what accounted for the gently rocking
motion of the thing upon which he lay, and why the position of
the stars changed so rapidly and miraculously. For a while
he thought he was dreaming, but when he would have moved to
shake sleep from him the pain of his wound recalled to him the
events that had led up to his present position. Then it was
that he realized that he was floating down a great African river
in a native canoe--alone, wounded, and lost.
Painfully he dragged himself to a sitting position. He noticed
that the wound pained him less than he had imagined it would.
He felt of it gingerly--it had ceased to bleed. Possibly it
The Son of Tarzan |
