| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: And "up!" and "to arms men of Vaiau!" But silence replied,
Or only the voice of the gusts of the fire, and nothing beside.
Rahero stooped and groped. He handled his womankind,
But the fumes of the fire and the kava had quenched the life of their mind,
And they lay like pillars prone; and his hand encountered the boy,
And there sprang in the gloom of his soul a sudden lightning of joy.
"Him can I save!" he thought, "if I were speedy enough."
And he loosened the cloth from his loins, and swaddled the child in the stuff;
And about the strength of his neck he knotted the burden well.
There where the roof had fallen, it roared like the mouth of hell.
Thither Rahero went, stumbling on senseless folk,
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: station. They were naked, glossy black, ornamented with snowy shells
and glistening brass wire, perfect of limb. They made an uncouth
babbling noise when they spoke, moved in a stately manner, and sent
quick, wild glances out of their startled, never-resting eyes. Those
warriors would squat in long rows, four or more deep, before the
verandah, while their chiefs bargained for hours with Makola over an
elephant tusk. Kayerts sat on his chair and looked down on the
proceedings, understanding nothing. He stared at them with his round
blue eyes, called out to Carlier, "Here, look! look at that fellow
there--and that other one, to the left. Did you ever such a face? Oh,
the funny brute!"
Tales of Unrest |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: of reality runs solely through the egotistic places--they are
strung upon it like so many beads. To describe the world with
all the various feelings of the individual pinch of destiny, all
the various spiritual attitudes, left out from the
description--they being as describable as anything else --would
be something like offering a printed bill of fare as the
equivalent for a solid meal. Religion makes no such blunder.
The individual's religion may be egotistic, and those private
realities which it keeps in touch with may be narrow enough; but
at any rate it always remains infinitely less hollow and
abstract, as far as it goes, than a science which prides itself
|
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 Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: seemed fast asleep.
"I am feeling very much better,"
said Duchess, waking up with a jump.
"I am truly glad to hear it! He has
brought you a pill, my dear Duchess!"
"I think I should feel QUITE well if he
only felt my pulse," said Duchess,
backing away from the magpie, who
sidled up with something in his beak.
"It is only a bread pill, you had
much better take it; drink a little milk,
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