| 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: if they listened to the dark redes of the witch-doctor, the trumpet-call
of duty sounded still louder in their ears; if, chanting their terrible
"Ingoma," at the King's bidding they went forth to slay unsparingly, at
least they were not mean or vulgar. From those who continually must
face the last great issues of life or death meanness and vulgarity are
far removed. These qualities belong to the safe and crowded haunts of
civilised men, not to the kraals of Bantu savages, where, at any rate of
old, they might be sought in vain.
Now everything is changed, or so I hear, and doubtless in the balance
this is best. Still we may wonder what are the thoughts that pass
through the mind of some ancient warrior of Chaka's or Dingaan's time,
Child of Storm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: of generous dreams and of hope which he will know no more.
As soon as a new dogma is implanted in the mind of crowds it
becomes the source of inspiration whence are evolved its
institutions, arts, and mode of existence. The sway it exerts
over men's minds under these circumstances is absolute. Men of
action have no thought beyond realising the accepted belief,
legislators beyond applying it, while philosophers, artists, and
men of letters are solely preoccupied with its expression under
various shapes.
From the fundamental belief transient accessory ideas may arise,
but they always bear the impress of the belief from which they
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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 Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: were those among them who wanted to keep the corpse on board.
Hunger was changing them from human beasts to wild beasts.
Two days before they had been picked up by the cruiser
they had become too weak to handle the vessel, and that
same day three men died. On the following morning it was
seen that one of the corpses had been partially devoured.
All that day the men lay glaring at each other like beasts
of prey, and the following morning two of the corpses lay
almost entirely stripped of flesh.
The men were but little stronger for their ghoulish repast,
for the want of water was by far the greatest agony with
Tarzan of the Apes |
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 Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: reverberations on the stones; or from the neighbouring wilderness
of railway an engine snorted forth a whistle. The main-line
departure platform slumbered like the rest; the booking-hutches
closed; the backs of Mr Haggard's novels, with which upon a
weekday the bookstall shines emblazoned, discreetly hidden behind
dingy shutters; the rare officials, undisguisedly somnambulant;
and the customary loiterers, even to the middle-aged woman with
the ulster and the handbag, fled to more congenial scenes. As in
the inmost dells of some small tropic island the throbbing of the
ocean lingers, so here a faint pervading hum and trepidation told
in every corner of surrounding London.
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