| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: O sailor soul, still sailing for the sky;
And fifty fathom deep
Your colours still shall fly.
THE COCK'S CLEAR VOICE INTO THE CLEARER AIR
THE cock's clear voice into the clearer air
Where westward far I roam,
Mounts with a thrill of hope,
Falls with a sigh of home.
A rural sentry, he from farm and field
The coming morn descries,
And, mankind's bugler, wakes
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: swing of the current), where no doubt a party of Masai were waiting
to dig their shovel-headed spears into us. Seizing one paddle
myself, I told Umslopogaas to take another (for the remaining
Askari was too frightened and bewildered to be of any use), and
together we rowed vigorously out towards the middle of the stream;
and not an instant too soon, for in another minute we should
have been aground, and then there would have been an end of us.
As soon as we were well out, we set to work to paddle the canoe
upstream again to where the other was moored; and very hard and
dangerous work it was in the dark, and with nothing but the notes
of Good's stentorian shouts, which he kept firing off at intervals
Allan Quatermain |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: said overseer's pig, "the slave shall be wholly
excused." But, should the bondman, of his own
accord, fight to defend his wife, or should his
terrified daughter instinctively raise her hand and
strike the wretch who attempts to violate her
chastity, he or she shall, saith the model republican
law, suffer death.
From having been myself a slave for nearly
twenty-three years, I am quite prepared to say,
that the practical working of slavery is worse than
the odious laws by which it is governed.
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
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 Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Violet also released herself, though with less abruptness,
gravely remarking that it was better not to take hold of hands.
The white-robed damsel said not a word, but danced about, just as
merrily as before. If Violet and Peony did not choose to play
with her, she could make just as good a playmate of the brisk and
cold west-wind, which kept blowing her all about the garden, and
took such liberties with her, that they seemed to have been
friends for a long time. All this while, the mother stood on the
threshold, wondering how a little girl could look so much like a
flying snow-drift, or how a snow-drift could look so very like a
little girl.
The Snow Image |
