| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: with a muffled, plaintive little wail.
After a while they found a pitiful little heap of sodden rags,
lying at the foot of a mound of earth and stones thrown upon the
side of the track. It was Titee with a broken leg, all wet and
miserable and moaning.
They picked him up tenderly, and started to carry him home. But
he cried and clung to the mother, and begged not to go.
"Ah, mon pauvre enfant, he has the fever!" wailed the mother.
"No, no, it's my old man. He's hungry," sobbed Titee, holding
out a little package. It was the remnants of his dinner, all wet
and rain-washed.
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: missionary; but, if it was strange, it was still true.
"Uma," said I, "you stop here in this room, and don't budge a foot
out of it till I come back."
CHAPTER III. THE MISSIONARY.
AS I came out on the verandah, the mission-boat was shooting for
the mouth of the river. She was a long whale-boat painted white; a
bit of an awning astern; a native pastor crouched on the wedge of
the poop, steering; some four-and-twenty paddles flashing and
dipping, true to the boat-song; and the missionary under the
awning, in his white clothes, reading in a book, and set him up!
It was pretty to see and hear; there's no smarter sight in the
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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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: Or thou or I, Somerset, will be protector,
Despite Duke Humphrey or the cardinal.
[Exeunt Buckingham and Somerset.]
SALISBURY.
Pride went before, ambition follows him.
While these do labour for their own preferment,
Behoves it us to labour for the realm.
I never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloster
Did bear him like a noble gentleman.
Oft have I seen the haughty cardinal,
More like a soldier than a man o' the church,
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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 Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: thereon! And in your eye--floateth there not a cloudlet of unforgotten
earthly bliss?
There are on the earth many good inventions, some useful, some pleasant:
for their sake is the earth to be loved.
And many such good inventions are there, that they are like woman's
breasts: useful at the same time, and pleasant.
Ye world-weary ones, however! Ye earth-idlers! You, shall one beat with
stripes! With stripes shall one again make you sprightly limbs.
For if ye be not invalids, or decrepit creatures, of whom the earth is
weary, then are ye sly sloths, or dainty, sneaking pleasure-cats. And if
ye will not again RUN gaily, then shall ye--pass away!
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
