| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: the night."
"Very good, Sikauli," I said. "Make me some coffee, and make it
strong."
I dressed and drank several cups of the coffee, all the while "thinking
with my head," as the Zulus say. Then I walked up to the kraal to see
Umbezi, whom I found just coming out of his hut, yawning.
"Why do you look so black upon this beautiful morning, Macumazahn?"
asked the genial old scamp. "Have you lost your best cow, or what?"
"No, my friend," I answered; "but you and another have lost your best
cow." And word for word I repeated to him Mameena's message. When I
had finished really I thought that Umbezi was about to faint.
Child of Storm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
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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 Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: of relief, of certainty, of humility, of desire no longer to strive
and to discriminate, yielding to which, she let herself sink within
his arms and confessed her love.
CHAPTER XXXII
Nobody asked Katharine any questions next day. If cross-examined she
might have said that nobody spoke to her. She worked a little, wrote a
little, ordered the dinner, and sat, for longer than she knew, with
her head on her hand piercing whatever lay before her, whether it was
a letter or a dictionary, as if it were a film upon the deep prospects
that revealed themselves to her kindling and brooding eyes. She rose
once, and going to the bookcase, took out her father's Greek
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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 Alcibiades I by Plato: SOCRATES: Then imagine, my dear fellow, that I am the demus and the
ecclesia; for in the ecclesia, too, you will have to persuade men
individually.
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is not the same person able to persuade one individual
singly and many individuals of the things which he knows? The grammarian,
for example, can persuade one and he can persuade many about letters.
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: And about number, will not the same person persuade one and
persuade many?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
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