| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: whether their saints will fling them down anything from heaven with
hayforks; God only knows that though there are a great many Catholic
priests among them. By one means or another the people will seek to
leave the city. Divide yourselves, therefore, into three divisions,
and take up your posts before the three gates; five kurens before the
principal gate, and three kurens before each of the others. Let the
Dadikivsky and Korsunsky kurens go into ambush and Taras and his men
into ambush too. The Titarevsky and Timoschevsky kurens are to guard
the baggage train on the right flank, the Scherbinovsky and
Steblikivsky on the left, and to select from their ranks the most
daring young men to face the foe. The Lyakhs are of a restless nature
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: dead, but breathed and reared upon his elbow, and cried out to them for
help. It was at a graceless face that he asked mercy. As soon as Hob
saw, by the glint of the lantern, the eyes shining and the whiteness of
the teeth in the man's face, "Damn you!" says he; "ye hae your teeth,
hae ye?" and rode his horse to and fro upon that human remnant. Beyond
that, Dandie must dismount with the lantern to be their guide; he was
the youngest son, scarce twenty at the time. "A' nicht long they gaed
in the wet heath and jennipers, and whaur they gaed they neither knew
nor cared, but just followed the bluid stains and the footprints o'
their faither's murderers. And a' nicht Dandie had his nose to the
grund like a tyke, and the ithers followed and spak' naething, neither
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