| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: from some of the savage tribes, to carry his cooking pot, make
his fires, draw his water, and generally perform his lordly
behests. This was indeed "more-than-oriental-splendour!"
>From now on Fundi considered himself my second gunbearer. I had
no use for him, but Fundi's development interested me, and I
wanted to give him a chance. His main fault at first was
eagerness. He had to be rapped pretty sharply and a good number
of times before he discovered that he really must walk in the
rear. His habit of calling my attention to perfectly obvious
things I cured by liberal sarcasm. His intense desire to take his
own line as perhaps opposed to mine when we were casting about on
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: CHAPTER XIII
THE PERVERSITY OF DOVES
"I am a non-dispossessable property-owner!" cried Thuillier, coming
home after visiting his notary. "No human power can get that house
away from me. Cardot says so."
The bourgeoisie think much more of what their notary tells them than
of what their attorney says. The notary is nearer to them than any
other ministerial officer. The Parisian bourgeois never pays a visit
to his attorney without a sense of fear; whereas he mounts the stairs
with ever-renewed pleasure to see his notary; he admires that
official's virtue and his sound good sense.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: our lives, do the work of Men while we bear the form of them, if
indeed those lives are NOT as a vapour, and do NOT vanish away.
"The work of men"--and what is that? Well, we may any of us know
very quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But
many of us are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do,
but of what we are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin
of Ananias, and it is a mortal one--we want to keep back part of the
price; and we continually talk of taking up our cross, as if the
only harm in a cross was the WEIGHT of it--as if it was only a thing
to be carried, instead of to be--crucified upon. "They that are His
have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." Does that
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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 The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: border which surrounded the narrow gulf between the two capes, formed of
mineral matter, thrown up by the volcano. Arrived at this point the
settlers retraced their steps, and at nightfall entered the Chimneys; but
they did not sleep before the question of knowing whether they could think
of leaving Lincoln Island or not was definitely settled.
The twelve hundred miles which separated the island from the Pomoutous
Island was a considerable distance. A boat could not cross it, especially
at the approach of the bad season. Pencroft had expressly declared this.
Now, to construct a simple boat even with the necessary tools, was a
difficult work, and the colonists not having tools they must begin by
making hammers, axes, adzes, saws, augers, planes, etc., which would take
The Mysterious Island |
