| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: her command to 'gaze upon the holy vision of her radiant face.'"
"What do you mean?" he whispered in an affrighted
voice, so low that I could scarcely hear him.
"I mean that I thought her the most repulsive and vilely
hideous creature my eyes ever had rested upon."
For a moment he eyed me in horror-stricken amazement,
and then with a cry of "Blasphemer" he sprang upon me.
I did not wish to strike him again, nor was it necessary,
since he was unarmed and therefore quite harmless to me.
As he came I grasped his left wrist with my left hand,
and, swinging my right arm about his left shoulder,
The Gods of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: and trees as Pirus Malus spectabilis, floribunda, and coronaria;
Prunus Juliana, Mahaleb, serotina, triloba, and Pissardi;
Cydonias and Weigelias in every colour, and several kinds
of Crataegus and other May lovelinesses. If the weather behaves
itself nicely, and we get gentle rains in due season, I think
this little corner will be beautiful--but what a big "if" it is!
Drought is our great enemy, and the two last summers each
contained five weeks of blazing, cloudless heat when all
the ditches dried up and the soil was like hot pastry.
At such times the watering is naturally quite beyond the strength
of two men; but as a garden is a <110> place to be happy in,
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: to the successful rival's credit reaches the ear of the defeated,
it is held by plain men of no pretensions that his mouth is, in the
circumstance, almost necessarily closed. Your Church and Damien's
were in Hawaii upon a rivalry to do well: to help, to edify, to set
divine examples. You having (in one huge instance) failed, and
Damien succeeded, I marvel it should not have occurred to you that
you were doomed to silence; that when you had been outstripped in
that high rivalry, and sat inglorious in the midst of your well-
being, in your pleasant room - and Damien, crowned with glories and
horrors, toiled and rotted in that pigsty of his under the cliffs
of Kalawao - you, the elect who would not, were the last man on
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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 Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: that time promised to be silent and to make an end of my case, if
he would command my adversaries to do the same. But that man of
pride, not content with this agreement, began to justify my
adversaries, to give them free licence, and to order me to
recant, a thing which was certainly not in his commission. Thus
indeed, when the case was in the best position, it came through
his vexatious tyranny into a much worse one. Therefore whatever
has followed upon this is the fault not of Luther, but entirely
of Cajetan, since he did not suffer me to be silent and remain
quiet, which at that time I was entreating for with all my might.
What more was it my duty to do?
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