| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: And your birch-canoe for sailing,
And the oil of Mishe-Nahma,
So to smear its sides, that swiftly
You may pass the black pitch-water;
Slay this merciless magician,
Save the people from the fever
That he breathes across the fen-lands,
And avenge my father's murder!"
Straightway then my Hiawatha
Armed himself with all his war-gear,
Launched his birch-canoe for sailing;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: - I am sure, to his own wonder - drove Tamasese out of Mulinuu. It
was "an intrigue," Becker complains. To be sure it was; but who
was Becker to be complaining of intrigue?
On the 7th Leary laid before Fritze the following conundrum: "As
the natives of Mulinuu appear to be under the protection of the
Imperial German naval guard belonging to the vessel under your
command, I have the honour to request you to inform me whether or
not they are under such protection? Amicable relations," pursued
the humorist, "amicable relations exist between the government of
the United States and His Imperial German Majesty's government, but
we do not recognise Tamasese's government, and I am desirous of
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: we, the men of the race, will perform its mean, its sordid, its grinding
toil! For woman is beauty, peace, repose! Your function is to give life,
not to support it by labour. The Mother, the Mother! How wonderful it
sounds! Toil no more! Rest is for you; labour and drudgery for us!"
Would he not rather assure her that, unless she laboured more assiduously
and sternly, she would lose his custom and so be unable to pay her month's
rent; and perhaps so, with children and an invalid or drunken husband whom
she supports, be turned out into the streets? For, it is remarkable, that,
with theorists of this class, it is not toil, or the amount of toil,
crushing alike to brain and body, which the female undertakes that is
objected to; it is the form and the amount of the reward. It is not the
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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 Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: thanked her; then she would have washed Galazi's wound also, and this
was deeper, but Galazi bade her to let him be roughly, as he would
have no woman meddling with his wounds. For neither then nor at any
other time did Galazi turn to women, but he hated Zinita most of them
all.
Then Umslopogaas spoke to Masilo the Pig, who sat before him with a
frightened face, saying, "It seems, O Masilo, that you have sought
this maid Zinita in marriage, and against her will, persecuting her.
Now I had intended to kill you as an offering to her anger, but there
has been enough blood-letting to-day. Yet you shall have a marriage
gift to this girl, whom I myself will take in marriage: you shall give
Nada the Lily |
