| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: order, which was given with an action worthy of Semiramis,--the part
in which la Tinti had won her fame,--the prima donna flew at the old
ape and put him out of the room.
"If you do not leave me in quiet this evening, we never meet again.
And my /never/ counts for more than yours," she added.
"Quiet!" retorted the Duke, with a bitter laugh. "Dear idol, it
strikes me that I am leaving you /agitata/!"
The Duke departed.
His mean spirit was no surprise to Emilio.
Every man who has accustomed himself to some particular taste, chosen
from among the various effects of love, in harmony with his own
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: and many similar proscriptions, which I was destined to meet in
New Bedford and elsewhere on the free soil of Massachusetts.
For instance, though colored children attended the schools,
and were treated kindly by their teachers, the New Bedford Lyceum
refused, till several years after my residence in that city,
to allow any colored person to attend the lectures delivered in its
hall. Not until such men as Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Horace Mann refused to lecture in their
course while there was such a restriction, was it abandoned.
Becoming satisfied that I could not rely on my trade in New
Bedford to give me a living, I prepared myself to do any kind of
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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 Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: wet clothes for the rather less wet in our bags) supped on
the verandah.
SATURDAY 28TH. I was wakened about 6.30, long past my usual
hour, by a benevolent passer-by. My turtle lay on the
verandah at my door, and the man woke me to tell me it was
dead, as it had been when we put it on board the day before.
All morning I ran the gauntlet of men and women coming up to
me: 'Mr. Stevenson, your turtle is dead.' I gave half of it
to the hotel keeper, so that his cook should cut it up; and
we got a damaged shell, and two splendid meals, beefsteak one
day and soup the next. The horses came for us about 9.30.
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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 The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: all the Keddahs."
There was another roar of laughter, for that is an old joke
among elephant-catchers, and it means just never. There are great
cleared flat places hidden away in the forests that are called
elephants' ball-rooms, but even these are only found by accident,
and no man has ever seen the elephants dance. When a driver
boasts of his skill and bravery the other drivers say, "And when
didst thou see the elephants dance?"
Kala Nag put Little Toomai down, and he bowed to the earth
again and went away with his father, and gave the silver four-anna
piece to his mother, who was nursing his baby brother, and they
The Jungle Book |
