| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: suffer no woman to set foot, Macumazahn. He taught me much wisdom and
many secret things, and would have made a great doctor of me had I so
willed. But I willed it not who find spirits ill company, and there are
many of them about the Black Kloof, Macumazahn. So in the end he said:
'Go where your heart calls, and be a warrior, Saduko. But know this:
You have opened a door that can never be shut again, and across the
threshold of that door spirits will pass in and out for all your life,
whether you seek them or seek them not.'
"'It was you who opened the door, Zikali,' I answered angrily.
"'Mayhap,' said Zikali, laughing after his fashion, 'for I open when I
must and shut when I must. Indeed, in my youth, before the Zulus were a
Child of Storm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: That I must be their Scourge and Minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gaue him: so againe, good night.
I must be cruell, onely to be kinde;
Thus bad begins and worse remaines behinde
Qu. What shall I do?
Ham. Not this by no meanes that I bid you do:
Let the blunt King tempt you againe to bed,
Pinch Wanton on your cheeke, call you his Mouse,
And let him for a paire of reechie kisses,
Or padling in your necke with his damn'd Fingers,
Hamlet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: world to whom the fears and hopes and joys of her life could be
naturally attached.
The late Comte de Dey was the last surviving scion of his family, and
she herself was the sole heiress of her own. Human interests and
projects combined, therefore, with the noblest deeds of the soul to
exalt in this mother's heart a sentiment that is always so strong in
the hearts of women. She had brought up this son with the utmost
difficulty, and with infinite pains, which rendered the youth still
dearer to her; a score of times the doctors had predicted his death,
but, confident in her own presentiments, her own unfailing hope, she
had the happiness of seeing him come safely through the perils of
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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 Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: As a child of about 12 years it seems she was wont to meet with a
certain group of girls on a hillside and they indulged in many
conversations about sex matters. Evidently the circumstances
surrounding this important introduction into affairs of sex life
were indelibly impressed upon her mind. She was there instructed
not only in the general facts, but also in methods of
self-gratification. It is clear to her, she states, that it was
exactly at this time that she first began deceiving her mother
and telling lies. She explains these tendencies as the result of
a guilty conscience. It comes out that the mother did not know
this group of girls to be undesirable companions for Janet, but
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