| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: birds. This is no country where every patch of wood among the
meadows gibes up an increase of song, and every valley wandered
through by a streamlet rings and reverberates from side to with a
profusion of clear notes. And this rarity of birds is not to be
regretted on its own account only. For the insects prosper in their
absence, and become as one of the plagues of Egypt. Ants swarm in
the hot sand; mosquitos drone their nasal drone; wherever the sun
finds a hole in the roof of the forest, you see a myriad transparent
creatures coming and going in the shaft of light; and even between-
whiles, even where there is no incursion of sun-rays into the dark
arcade of the wood, you are conscious of a continual drift of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: of them in mine.
"And the second thing that he would do," said I, "if he was what I
would call a man and you would call a man, Mr. Tarleton, is to
bring the girl right before you or any other missionary, and to up
and say: 'I was wrong married to this wife of mine, but I think a
heap of her, and now I want to be married to her right.' Fire
away, Mr. Tarleton. And I guess you'd better do it in native;
it'll please the old lady," I said, giving her the proper name of a
man's wife upon the spot.
So we had in two of the crew for to witness, and were spliced in
our own house; and the parson prayed a good bit, I must say - but
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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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: woods. "The pale white man!" I do not wonder that the African
pitied him. Darwin the naturalist says, "A white man bathing by
the side of a Tahitian was like a plant bleached by the
gardener's art, compared with a fine, dark green one, growing
vigorously in the open fields."
Ben Jonson exclaims,--
"How near to good is what is fair!"
So I would say,--
"How near to good is what is WILD!"
Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not
yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed
Walking |
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 The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: A common light of smiles at our disguise
Broke from their lips, and, ere the windy jest
Had laboured down within his ample lungs,
The genial giant, Arac, rolled himself
Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words.
'Our land invaded, 'sdeath! and he himself
Your captive, yet my father wills not war:
And, 'sdeath! myself, what care I, war or no?
but then this question of your troth remains:
And there's a downright honest meaning in her;
She flies too high, she flies too high! and yet
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