| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: buffalo's horns had missed him. He had been struck only with its muddy
nose, which, being almost as broad as that portion of Umbezi with which
it came in contact, had inflicted nothing worse than a bruise. When I
was sure he had received no serious injury, my temper, already sorely
tried, gave out, and I administered to him the soundest smacking--his
position being very convenient--that he had ever received since he was a
little boy.
"Get up, you idiot!" I shouted, "and let us look for the others. This
is the end of your folly in making me attack a herd of buffalo in reeds.
Get up. Am I to stop here till I choke?"
"Do you mean to tell me that I have no mortal wound, Macumazahn?" he
Child of Storm |
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 A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: His arrival in the Caucasus is also the result
of his romantic fanaticism. I am convinced
that on the eve of his departure from his paternal
village he said with an air of gloom to some pretty
neighbour that he was going away, not so much
for the simple purpose of serving in the army as of
seeking death, because . . . and hereupon, I am
sure, he covered his eyes with his hand and
continued thus, "No, you -- or thou -- must not
know! Your pure soul would shudder! And
what would be the good? What am I to
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