| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: where we were and await events, because, as I pointed out, it was
necessary that we should discover whether these natives were
hostile or friendly. In the former event we could hold our own on
the ship, whereas away from it we must be overwhelmed; in the
latter there was always time to move inland.
About ten o'clock when we were seated on stools smoking, with
our guns by our side--for here, owing to the overhanging cliff in
which it will be remembered the prow of the ship was buried, we
could not be reached by missiles thrown from above--we saw
numbers of the islanders advancing upon us along the beach on
either side. They were preceded as before by women who bore food
When the World Shook |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: "Who and what the devil is he, and how do you come to know him?"
he demanded. He never swore in the presence of any lady except
his wife, and then only when they were alone.
"He is a gentleman, which is more than you are," she retorted,
and, with a cut of her whip that narrowly missed her husband's
shoulder, sent the bay plunging through the gap.
"Come along," she said to Erskine. "We shall be late for
luncheon."
"Had we not better wait for Sir Charles?" he asked injudiciously.
"Never mind Sir Charles, he is in the sulks," she said, without
abating her voice. "Come along." And she went off at a canter,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: ever on his once so active limbs. I could not but think of him as
somehow fortunate to be thus done with man's anxiety and weariness,
the daily expense of spirit, and that daily river of circumstance
to be swum through, at any hazard, under the penalty of shame or
death. I could not but think how good was the end of that long
travel; and with that, my mind swung at a tangent to my lord. For
was not my lord dead also? a maimed soldier, looking vainly for
discharge, lingering derided in the line of battle? A kind man, I
remembered him; wise, with a decent pride, a son perhaps too
dutiful, a husband only too loving, one that could suffer and be
silent, one whose hand I loved to press. Of a sudden, pity caught
|
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 House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: to the frequent summons of the shop-bell, and, at the demand of
her customers, went prying with vague eyes about the shop,
proffering them one article after another, and thrusting aside
--perversely, as most of them supposed--the identical thing
they asked for. There is sad confusion, indeed, when the spirit
thus flits away into the past, or into the more awful future, or,
in any manner, steps across the spaceless boundary betwixt its
own region and the actual world; where the body remains to guide
itself as best it may, with little more than the mechanism of
animal life. It is like death, without death's quiet privilege,
--its freedom from mortal care. Worst of all, when the actual duties
House of Seven Gables |
