| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: another, and as an old man to a young woman, will you help a
daughter of Hawaii?"
"Ah," said the old man. "So you are the witch from the eight
islands, and even my old soul you seek to entangle. But I have
heard of you, and defy your wickedness."
"Sit down here," said Kokua, "and let me tell you a tale." And she
told him the story of Keawe from the beginning to the end.
"And now," said she, "I am his wife, whom he bought with his soul's
welfare. And what should I do? If I went to him myself and
offered to buy it, he would refuse. But if you go, he will sell it
eagerly; I will await you here; you will buy it for four centimes,
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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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: even of bright, hot days when the wind sleeps, there is something
grotesquely pathetic in their look of agonized terror. A group
of oaks at Grande Isle I remember as especially suggestive: five
stooping silhouettes in line against the horizon, like fleeing
women with streaming garments and wind-blown hair,--bowing
grievously and thrusting out arms desperately northward as to
save themselves from falling. And they are being pursued
indeed;--for the sea is devouring the land. Many and many a mile
of ground has yielded to the tireless charging of Ocean's
cavalry: far out you can see, through a good glass, the
porpoises at play where of old the sugar-cane shook out its
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