| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: forced to pause until the strangely savage, monotonous noise of the
native drums had ceased; but no Samoan, nor, I trust, white person,
changed his reverent attitude. Once, I remember a look of
surprised dismay crossing the countenance of Tusitala when my son,
contrary to his usual custom of reading the next chapter following
that of yesterday, turned back the leaves of his Bible to find a
chapter fiercely denunciatory, and only too applicable to the
foreign dictators of distracted Samoa. On another occasion the
chief himself brought the service to a sudden check. He had just
learned of the treacherous conduct of one in whom he had every
reason to trust. That evening the prayer seemed unusually short
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being
happy. By being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the
world, which remain unknown even to ourselves, or when they
are disclosed, surprise nobody so much as the benefactor. The
other day, a ragged, barefoot boy ran down the street after a
marble, with so jolly an air that he set every one he passed
into a good humour; one of these persons, who had been
delivered from more than usually black thoughts, stopped the
little fellow and gave him some money with this remark: "You
see what sometimes comes of looking pleased." If he had
looked pleased before, he had now to look both pleased and
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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 Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: roundel. Slowly he cracked off a few fresh pieces of coal,
packed them, with fingers that never flinched, exactly
where they would do most good; slowly he reached
behind him till Dan tilted the potatoes into his iron scoop
of a hand; carefully he arranged them round the fire, and
then stood for a moment, black against the glare. As he
closed the shutter, the oast-house seemed dark before
the day's end, and he lit the candle in the lanthorn. The
children liked all these things because they knew them so well.
The Bee Boy, Hobden's son, who is not quite right in
his head, though he can do anything with bees, slipped
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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 Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: of our nature, hath not even here suffered our sickness to be
without remedy. But, like a skilful leech, he hath mixed for our
unsteady and sin-loving heart the potion of repentance,
prescribing this for the remission of sins. For after that we
have received the knowledge of the truth, and have been
sanctified by water and the Spirit, and cleansed without effort
from all sin and all defilement, if we should fortune to fall
into any transgression, there is, it is true, no second
regeneration made within us by the spirit through baptism in the
water of the font, and wholly re-creating us (that gift is given
once for all); but, by means of painful repentance, hot tears,
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