| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: "To give ten francs to this honest fellow," replied Raoul,
taking a pistole from his pocket.
"Ten kicks on his back!" said D'Artagnan; "be off, you
little villain, and forget not that I have your address."
Friquet, who did not expect to be let off so cheaply,
bounded off like a gazelle up the Quai a la Rue Dauphine,
and disappeared. Raoul mounted his horse, and both leisurely
took their way to the Rue Tiquetonne.
D'Artagnan watched over the youth as if he had been his own
son.
They arrived without accident at the Hotel de la Chevrette.
Twenty Years After |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: a house, we bought ten-pound weight of luscious black cherries
for something less than a rupee, and got a drink of icy-cold
water for nothing, while the untended team browsed sagaciously by
the road-side. Once we found a way-side camp of horse-dealers
lounging by a pool, ready for a sale or a swap, and once two
sun-tanned youngsters shot down a hill on Indian ponies, their
full creels banging from the high-pommelled saddle. They had
been fishing, and were our brethren, therefore. We shouted aloud
in chorus to scare a wild cat; we squabbled over the reasons that
had led a snake to cross a road; we heaved bits of bark at a
venturesome chipmunk, who was really the little gray squirrel of
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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 Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: All day the cruel hoe was plied;
The ambulance barrow rolled all day;
Your wife, the tender, kind, and gay,
Donned her long gauntlets, caught the spud,
And bathed in vegetable blood;
And the long massacre now at end,
See! where the lazy coils ascend,
See, where the bonfire sputters red
At even, for the innocent dead.
Why prate of peace? when, warriors all,
We clank in harness into hall,
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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 Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: out the thought in my mind.
"Perhaps, perhaps, Macumazahn; only I may call it good counsel. I have
my own road to walk, and if I can find some to clear away the thorns
that would prick my feet, what of it? Also she will get her pay, who
finds life dull up there among the Amasomi, with one she hates for a
hut-fellow. Go you and watch, and afterwards, when you have an hour to
spare, come and tell me what happens--that is, if I do not chance to be
there to see for myself."
"Is Saduko well?" I asked to change the subject, for I did not wish to
become privy to the plots that filled the air.
"I am told that his tree grows great, that it overshadows all the royal
Child of Storm |
