| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: Ask Secundra Dass; he will tell you I treat him like a son. Cast
in your lot with me to-morrow, become my slave, my chattel, a thing
I can command as I command the powers of my own limbs and spirit -
you will see no more that dark side that I turn upon the world in
anger. I must have all or none. But where all is given, I give it
back with usury. I have a kingly nature: there is my loss!"
"It has been hitherto rather the loss of others," I remarked,
"which seems a little on the hither side of royalty."
"Tilly-vally!" cried he. "Even now, I tell you, I would spare that
family in which you take so great an interest: yes, even now - to-
morrow I would leave them to their petty welfare, and disappear in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: as it is to extract a Diana or a Minerva from a rough block of marble.
Then as to the analysis of the ancients and the algebra of the moderns,
besides that they embrace only matters highly abstract, and, to
appearance, of no use, the former is so exclusively restricted to the
consideration of figures, that it can exercise the understanding only on
condition of greatly fatiguing the imagination; and, in the latter, there
is so complete a subjection to certain rules and formulas, that there
results an art full of confusion and obscurity calculated to embarrass,
instead of a science fitted to cultivate the mind. By these considerations
I was induced to seek some other method which would comprise the
advantages of the three and be exempt from their defects. And as a
Reason Discourse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: ship, and by God, here he is a landed proprietor, and may be in
Parliament to-morrow! It's no less than natural he should keep
dark: so would you and me in the same box."
"I daresay," said I. "But you saw more of the others?"
"To be sure," says he: "no 'arm in them from what I see. There
was one 'Ardy there: colonial born he was, and had been
through a power of money. There was no nonsense about
'Ardy; he had been up, and he had come down, and took it so.
His 'eart was in the right place; and he was well-informed, and
knew French; and Latin, I believe, like a native! I liked that
'Ardy; he was a good-looking boy, too."
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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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: necessary to this captive, namely, that his blood should be noble,
and that his person should be beautiful and without flaw or
blemish. The day that you came hither, Teule, chanced to be the
day of choosing a new captive to personate the god, and you have
been chosen because you are both noble and more beautiful than any
man in Anahuac, and also because being of the people of the Teules,
the children of Quetzal of whom so many rumours have reached us,
and whose coming my father Montezuma dreads more than anything in
the world, it was thought by the priests that you may avert their
anger from us, and the anger of the gods.'
Now Otomie paused as one who has something to say that she can
Montezuma's Daughter |
