| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: consideration.
"Wherefore we stand by a forking of the trail, you and I," she
went on calmly, "and I have come that we may look once more upon
each other, and once more only."
She was born of primitive stock, and primitive had been her
traditions and her days; so she regarded life stoically, and human
sacrifice as part of the natural order. The powers which ruled
the day-light and the dark, the flood and the frost, the bursting
of the bud and the withering of the leaf, were angry and in need
of propitiation. This they exacted in many ways,--death in the
bad water, through the treacherous ice-crust, by the grip of the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: This story of your country and your clan,
In your loved house, your too much honoured guest,
I made in English. Take it, being done;
And let me sign it with the name you gave.
TERIITERA.
I. THE SLAYING OF TAMATEA
IT fell in the days of old, as the men of Taiarapu tell,
A youth went forth to the fishing, and fortune favoured him well.
Tamatea his name: gullible, simple, and kind,
Comely of countenance, nimble of body, empty of mind,
His mother ruled him and loved him beyond the wont of a wife,
Ballads |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: a few feeble rays upon the figure within.
A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly
from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently
back. For a brief moment I hesitated-- I trembled. Unsheathing my
rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought
of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric
of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached the wall; I
replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed-- I aided--
I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the
clamourer grew still.
It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I
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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 The Koran: be the prosperous.'
Say, 'O ye folk! verily, I am the Apostle of God unto you all,'-
of Him whose is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, there is
no god but He! He quickens and He kills! believe then in God and His
Apostle, the illiterate prophet,- who believes in God and in His
words- then follow him that haply ye may be guided.
Amongst Moses' people is a nation guided in truth, and thereby act
they justly.
And we cut them up into twelve tribes, each a nation; and we
revealed unto Moses, when his people asked him for drink, 'Strike with
thy staff the rock!' and there gushed forth from it twelve springs,
The Koran |
