| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: "Ah, but when she's really hungry!" thought the Frenchman. In spite of
the shudder this thought caused him, the soldier began to measure
curiously the proportions of the panther, certainly one of the most
splendid specimens of its race. She was three feet high and four feet
long without counting her tail; this powerful weapon, rounded like a
cudgel, was nearly three feet long. The head, large as that of a
lioness, was distinguished by a rare expression of refinement. The
cold cruelty of a tiger was dominant, it was true, but there was also
a vague resemblance to the face of a sensual woman. Indeed, the face
of this solitary queen had something of the gaiety of a drunken Nero:
she had satiated herself with blood, and she wanted to play.
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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 Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: decorum. After four or five had thus spoken, Horne, without
altering his lounging attitude, spoke twenty or thirty words,
rapped again on the table with his rawhide whip, and immediately
came over to us.
"Now," said he cheerfully, "we'll have a game of golf."
That was amusing, but not astonishing. Most of us have at one
time or another laid out a scratch hole or so somewhere in the
vacant lot. We returned to the house, Horne produced a
sufficiency of clubs, and we sallied forth. Then came the surprise
of our life! We played eighteen holes-eighteen, mind you-over
an excellently laid-out and kept-up course! The fair greens were
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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 Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: incomprehensible. All these religions are trying to tell
something they do not clearly know--of a relationship between
these two, that eludes them, that eludes the human mind, as water
escapes from the hand. It is unity and opposition they have to
declare at the same time; it is agreement and propitiation, it is
infinity and effort."
"And the truth?" said the bishop in an eager whisper. "You can
tell me the truth."
The Angel's answer was a gross familiarity. He thrust his hand
through the bishop's hair and ruffled it affectionately, and
rested for a moment holding the bishop's cranium in his great
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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 Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: old ruined castles or giant graves, the work of human hands.
Kraal - A sheepfold.
Krantz - A precipice.
Sluit - A deep fissure, generally dry, in which the superfluous torrents of
water are carried from the karoo plains after thunderstorms.
Stoep - A porch.
I. DREAM LIFE AND REAL LIFE; A LITTLE AFRICAN STORY.
Little Jannita sat alone beside a milk-bush. Before her and behind her
stretched the plain, covered with red sand and thorny karoo bushes; and
here and there a milk-bush, looking like a bundle of pale green rods tied
together. Not a tree was to be seen anywhere, except on the banks of the
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