| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: Being an Account of Certain Adventures that Befell Henry Mostyn
Under Capt. H. Morgan in the Year 1665-66
ALTHOUGH this narration has more particularly to do with the
taking of the Spanish vice admiral in the harbor of Porto Bello,
and of the rescue therefrom of Le Sieur Simon, his wife and
daughter (the adventure of which was successfully achieved by
Captain Morgan, the famous buccaneer), we shall, nevertheless,
premise something of the earlier history of Master Harry Mostyn,
whom you may, if you please, consider as the hero of the several
circumstances recounted in these pages.
In the year 1664 our hero's father embarked from Portsmouth, in
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: "What do you think I've got for my pictures, mother?" he asked,
coming home one evening. She saw by his eyes he was glad.
Her face flushed.
"Now, how should I know, my boy!"
"A first prize for those glass jars---"
"H'm!"
"And a first prize for that sketch up at Willey Farm."
"Both first?"
"Yes."
"H'm!"
There was a rosy, bright look about her, though she said nothing.
Sons and Lovers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: the seas, useful and ugly, devoted to the support
of domestic virtues like any grocer's shop on shore.
At once Falk steamed away; for there was some
work for him to do. He would return in the even-
ing.
He ranged close by us, passing out dead slow,
without a hail. The beat of the paddle-wheels re-
verberating amongst the stony islets, as if from the
ruined walls of a vast arena, filled the anchorage
confusedly with the clapping sounds of a mighty
and leisurely applause. Abreast of Hermann's
Falk |
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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give
His life a ransom for many.
Surely that is woman's calling--to teach man: and to teach him
what? To teach him, after all, that his calling is the same as
hers, if he will but see the things which belong to his peace. To
temper his fiercer, coarser, more self-assertive nature, by the
contact of her gentleness, purity, self-sacrifice. To make him
see that not by blare of trumpets, not by noise, wrath, greed,
ambition, intrigue, puffery, is good and lasting work to be done
on earth: but by wise self-distrust, by silent labour, by lofty
self-control, by that charity which hopeth all things, believeth
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