| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: if all comes true, as you suppose, I will buy the bottle, as I
said, and ask a schooner."
Upon that they were agreed, and it was not long before the ship
returned to Honolulu, carrying Keawe and Lopaka, and the bottle.
They were scarce come ashore when they met a friend upon the beach,
who began at once to condole with Keawe.
"I do not know what I am to be condoled about," said Keawe.
"Is it possible you have not heard," said the friend, "your uncle -
that good old man - is dead, and your cousin - that beautiful boy -
was drowned at sea?"
Keawe was filled with sorrow, and, beginning to weep and to lament,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: and let me keep the path."
Accordingly the young man turned aside, but took care to watch
his companion, who advanced softly along the road until he had
come within a staff's length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was
making the best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a
woman, and mumbling some indistinct words--a prayer,
doubtless--as she went. The traveller put forth his staff and
touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent's tail.
"The devil!" screamed the pious old lady.
"Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?" observed the traveller,
confronting her and leaning on his writhing stick.
Mosses From An Old Manse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: the truth alone, but the art of persuasion founded on knowledge of truth
and knowledge of character; fifthly, the superiority of the spoken over the
written word. The continuous thread which appears and reappears throughout
is rhetoric; this is the ground into which the rest of the Dialogue is
worked, in parts embroidered with fine words which are not in Socrates'
manner, as he says, 'in order to please Phaedrus.' The speech of Lysias
which has thrown Phaedrus into an ecstacy is adduced as an example of the
false rhetoric; the first speech of Socrates, though an improvement,
partakes of the same character; his second speech, which is full of that
higher element said to have been learned of Anaxagoras by Pericles, and
which in the midst of poetry does not forget order, is an illustration of
|
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 Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: route to the beach.
Several times they halted for brief rests, which Tarzan did
not need, and at noon they stopped for an hour at a little
brook, where they quenched their thirst, and ate.
So it was nearly sunset when they came to the clearing, and
Tarzan, dropping to the ground beside a great tree, parted
the tall jungle grass and pointed out the little cabin to her.
She took him by the hand to lead him to it, that she might
tell her father that this man had saved her from death and
worse than death, that he had watched over her as carefully
as a mother might have done.
Tarzan of the Apes |
