| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: Moreover, to revert to another point which we touched just now, man
has a body as well as a mind; and with the vast majority there will
be no MENS SANA unless there be a CORPUS SANUM for it to inhabit.
And what outdoor training to give our youths is, as we have already
said, more than ever puzzling. This difficulty is felt, perhaps,
less in Scotland than in England. The Scotch climate compels
hardiness; the Scotch bodily strength makes it easy; and Scotland,
with her mountain-tours in summer, and her frozen lochs in winter,
her labyrinth of sea-shore, and, above all, that priceless boon
which Providence has bestowed on her, in the contiguity of her
great cities to the loveliest scenery, and the hills where every
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: Fairies should always be teaching us to do our duty, and lecturing us
when we go wrong, and we should never teach them anything? You can't
mean to say that Fairies are never greedy, or selfish, or cross, or
deceitful, because that would be nonsense, you know. Well then, don't
you think they might be all the better for a little lecturing and
punishing now and then?
I really don't see why it shouldn't be tried, and I'm almost sure that,
if you could only catch a Fairy, and put it in the corner, and give it
nothing but bread and water for a day or two, you'd find it quite an
improved character--it would take down its conceit a little, at all
events.
Sylvie and Bruno |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Did ring the prayers of man-made maniacs;
But if that word be the plain word of Truth,
It leaves an echo that begets itself,
Persistent in itself and of itself,
Regenerate, reiterate, replete.
IV
Tumultuously void of a clean scheme
Whereon to build, whereof to formulate,
The legion life that riots in mankind
Goes ever plunging upward, up and down,
Most like some crazy regiment at arms,
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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 Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: the current from above and urging in for the eddy. Hay Stockard
watched it intently. Three men rose and dipped, rose and dipped,
in rhythmical precision; but a red bandanna, wrapped about the
head of one, caught and held his eye.
"Bill!" he called. "Oh, Bill!"
A shambling, loose-jointed giant rolled out of one of the tents,
yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Then he sighted the
strange canoe and was wide awake on the instant.
"By the jumping Methuselah! That damned sky-pilot!"
Hay Stockard nodded his head bitterly, half-reached for his rifle,
then shrugged his shoulders.
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