| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: all beast he would have eaten; but his man-mind could
entertain urges even more potent than those of the belly,
and now he was concerned with an idea which kept a smile
upon his lips and his eyes sparkling in anticipation.
An idea, it was, which permitted him to forget that he
was hungry.
The meat safely cached, Tarzan trotted along the elephant
trail after the Gomangani. Two or three miles from the
cage he overtook them and then he swung into the trees
and followed above and behind them--waiting his chance.
Among the blacks was Rabba Kega, the witch-doctor. Tarzan
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: made by which they may have sons and daughters to support them in old
age.
[18] Reading {oti}, or if with Br. {eti . . . auto}, "with the further
intent it should prove of maximum advantage to itself."
[19] Cf. (Aristot.) "Oecon." i. 3.
"And again, the way of life of human beings, not being maintained like
that of cattle[20] in the open air, obviously demands roofed
homesteads. But if these same human beings are to have anything to
bring in under cover, some one to carry out these labours of the field
under high heaven[21] must be found them, since such operations as the
breaking up of fallow with the plough, the sowing of seed, the
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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 The Economist by Xenophon: [9] See "Ages." ix. 6, "of how lofty a sentiment."
[10] See Herod. vii. 20, 157; Thuc. iii. 96.
So, too, within the field of private industry, the person in
authority, be it the bailiff, be it the overseer,[11] provided he is
able to produce unflinching energy, intense and eager, for the work,
belongs to those who haste to overtake good things[12] and reap great
plenty. Should the master (he proceeded), being a man possessed of so
much power, Socrates, to injure the bad workman and reward the zealous
--should he suddenly appear, and should his appearance in the labour
field produce no visible effect upon his workpeople, I cannot say I
envy or admire him. But if the sight of him is followed by a stir of
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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 A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: in Europe; we are often enough reminded of the circumstance, not
always by their friends. But a mob is a mob, and a drunken mob is
a drunken mob, and a drunken mob with weapons in its hands is a
drunken mob with weapons in its hands, all the world over:
elementary propositions, which some of us upon these islands might
do worse than get by rote, but which must have been evident enough
to Becker. And I am amazed by the man's constancy, that, even
while blows were going at the door of that German firm which he was
in Samoa to protect, he should have stuck to his demands. Ten days
before, Blacklock had offered to recognise the old territory,
including Mulinuu, and Becker had refused, and still in the midst
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