| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: with long spears, impenetrable even to the men-at-arms of the
age, though well mounted, and arrayed in complete proof. It may
easily be conceived, therefore, that their ranks could not be
broken by the disorderly charge of Highland infantry armed for
close combat only, with swords, and ill furnished with missile
weapons, and having no artillery whatever.
This habit of fight was in a great measure changed by the
introduction of muskets into the Scottish Lowland service, which,
not being as yet combined with the bayonet, was a formidable
weapon at a distance, but gave no assurance against the enemy who
rushed on to close quarters. The pike, indeed, was not wholly
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: every word they said. She could hear it all.
"You may have all the money," said the Bushman; "but I want the cask of
brandy. I will set the roof alight in six places, for a Dutchman burnt my
mother once alive in a hut, with three children."
"You are sure there is no one else on the farm?" said the navvy.
"No, I have told you till I am tired," said Dirk; "The two Kaffirs have
gone with the son to town; and the maids have gone to a dance; there is
only the old man and the two women left."
"But suppose," said the navvy, "he should have the gun at his bedside, and
loaded!"
"He never has," said Dirk; "it hangs in the passage, and the cartridges
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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 The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: appearance as it is possible for a sledge to be.
The harness was more difficult to prepare, but Claus twisted strong
cords together and knotted them so they would fit around the necks of
the deer, in the shape of a collar. From these ran other cords to
fasten the deer to the front of the sledge.
Before the work was completed Glossie and Flossie were back from the
Forest, having been granted permission by Will Knook to make the
journey with Claus provided they would to Burzee by daybreak the
next morning.
"That is not a very long time," said Flossie; "but we are swift and
strong, and if we get started by this evening we can travel many miles
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: keeping with the full development of his whole frame. With his thick
crop of black hair, his fleshy, high-colored, swarthy face, supported
by a thick neck, he looked at first sight like one of Boileau's
canons: but on a second glance there was that in the lines about the
thick lips, in the dimple of the chin, in the turn of the square
nostrils, with the broad irregular line of central cleavage, and,
above all, in the eyes, with the steady light of an all-absorbing love
that burned in them, which revealed the real character of the man--the
wisdom of the thinker, the strenuous melancholy of a spirit that
discerns the horizon on either side, and sees clearly to the end of
winding ways, turning the clear light of analysis upon the joys of
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