| 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: buffalo with the cleft horn.
"'Do I love you?' she said. 'I know not for sure. How can I tell? It
is not our custom that a maiden should love before she is married, for
is she did so most marriages would be things of the heart and not of
cattle, and then half the fathers of Zululand would grow poor and refuse
to rear girl-children who would bring them nothing. You are brave, you
are handsome, you are well-born; I would sooner live with you than with
any other man I know--that is, if you were rich and, better still,
powerful. Become rich and powerful, Saduko, and I think that I shall
love you.'
"'I will, Mameena,' I answered; 'but you must wait. The Zulu nation was
Child of Storm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: on me are not real. The man I know to be a myth, because I have
seen him acting so often in the Palais Royal. He plays the Duke in
TRICOCHE ET CACOLET; I knew his nose at once. The part he plays
here is very dull for him, but conscientious. As for the bedmaker,
she's a dream, a kind of cheerful, innocent nightmare; I never saw
so poor an imitation of humanity. I cannot work - CANNOT. Even
the GUITAR is still undone; I can only write ditch-water. 'Tis
ghastly; but I am quite cheerful, and that is more important. Do
you think you could prepare the printers for a possible breakdown
this week? I shall try all I know on Monday; but if I can get
nothing better than I got this morning, I prefer to drop a week.
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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 Menexenus by Plato: and fought for the freedom of the Boeotians; the issue was doubtful, and
was decided by the engagement which followed. For when the Lacedaemonians
had gone on their way, leaving the Boeotians, whom they were aiding, on the
third day after the battle of Tanagra, our countrymen conquered at
Oenophyta, and righteously restored those who had been unrighteously
exiled. And they were the first after the Persian war who fought on behalf
of liberty in aid of Hellenes against Hellenes; they were brave men, and
freed those whom they aided, and were the first too who were honourably
interred in this sepulchre by the state. Afterwards there was a mighty
war, in which all the Hellenes joined, and devastated our country, which
was very ungrateful of them; and our countrymen, after defeating them in a
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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 Contrast by Royall Tyler: have it--his heart is like an old maiden lady's band-
box; it contains many costly things, arranged with
the most scrupulous nicety, yet the misfortune is that
they are too delicate, costly, and antiquated for com-
mon use.
LETITIA
By what I can pick out of your flowery description,
your brother is no beau.
CHARLOTTE
No, indeed; he makes no pretension to the char-
acter. He'd ride, or rather fly, an hundred miles to
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