| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: this flatly, I couldn't and wouldn't fly in the face of the authorities for
him or anyone else. I've my own girl waiting for me down in the Colony,
and she's been waiting for me these five years. And whether I'm able to
marry her or not depends on how I stand with the Company: and I say,
flatly, I'm not going to fall out with it. I came here to make money, and
I mean to make it! If other people like to run their heads against stone
walls, let them: but they mustn't expect me to follow them. This isn't a
country where a man can say what he thinks."
The Englishman rested his elbows on the ground. "And the Union Jack is
supposed to be flying over us."
"Yes, with a black bar across it for the Company," laughed the Colonial.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: Royale and the centre of Paris for good, and crossed the river to
breathe freely in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where palaces were
reared already about the great hotel built by Louis XIV for the
Duc de Maine--the Benjamin among his legitimated offspring. And
indeed, for people accustomed to a stately life, can there be
more unseemly surroundings than the bustle, the mud, the street
cries, the bad smells, and narrow thoroughfares of a populous
quarter? The very habits of life in a mercantile or
manufacturing district are completely at variance with the lives
of nobles. The shopkeeper and artisan are just going to bed when
the great world is thinking of dinner; and the noisy stir of life
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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 Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: After the milky nipples of the breasts,
An infant still. And later, when at last
The lusty powers of horses and stout limbs,
Now weak through lapsing life, do fail with age,
Lo, only then doth youth with flowering years
Begin for boys, and clothe their ruddy cheeks
With the soft down. So never deem, percase,
That from a man and from the seed of horse,
The beast of draft, can Centaurs be composed
Or e'er exist alive, nor Scyllas be-
The half-fish bodies girdled with mad dogs-
Of The Nature of Things |
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 Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: would run wildly up a hummock, tossing his arms and speaking in
loud, threatening tones. To tell the truth, Kotuko was very
nearly crazy for the time being; but the girl was sure that he
was being guided by his guardian spirit, and that everything
would come right. She was not surprised, therefore, when at the
end of the fourth march Kotuko, whose eyes were burning like
fire-balls in his head, told her that his tornaq was following
them across the snow in the shape of a two-headed dog. The girl
looked where Kotuko pointed, and something seemed to slip into
a ravine. It was certainly not human, but everybody knew that
the tornait preferred to appear in the shape of bear and seal,
The Second Jungle Book |
