| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: TOUS. Cesar! Cesar!
HERODE. Vous ne remarquez pas comme votre fille est pale.
HERODIAS. Qu'est-ce que cela vous fait qu'elle soit pale ou non?
HERODE. Jamais je ne l'ai vue si pale.
HERODIAS. Il ne faut pas la regarder.
LA VOIX D'IOKANAAN. En ce jour-le le soleil deviendra noir comme un
sac de poil, et la lune deviendra comme du sang, et les etoiles du
ciel tomberont sur la terre comme les figues vertes tombent d'un
figuier, et les rois de la terre auront peur.
HERODIAS. Ah! Ah! Je voudrais bien voir ce jour dont il parle, ou
la lune deviendra comme du sang et ou les etoiles tomberont sur la
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: the water leaped upward into spray. Scarcely had it become leveled
and smooth than there bubbled up many black spots. The creek was
seething with the dancing of round black things.
"The cooled fire! The coals!" laughed the brood of Iktomis.
Clapping together their little hands, they chased one another along
the edge of the creek. They shouted and hooted with great glee.
"Ahas!" said a gruff voice across the water. It was Patkasa.
In a large willow tree leaning far over the water he sat upon a
large limb. On the very same branch was a bright burning fire over
which Patkasa broiled the venison. By this time the water was calm
again. No more danced those black spots on its surface, for they
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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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: surgeon, to tend the health and the beard of the great Cardinal
Beaton; I have shaken a spear in the Debateable Land and shouted
the slogan of the Elliots; I was present when a skipper, plying
from Dundee, smuggled Jacobites to France after the '15; I was in a
West India merchant's office, perhaps next door to Bailie Nicol
Jarvie's, and managed the business of a plantation in St. Kitt's; I
was with my engineer-grandfather (the son-in-law of the lamp and
oil man) when he sailed north about Scotland on the famous cruise
that gave us the PIRATE and the LORD OF THE ISLES; I was with him,
too, on the Bell Rock, in the fog, when the SMEATON had drifted
from her moorings, and the Aberdeen men, pick in hand, had seized
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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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: indeed he had met this ugly trifle, as he met every thwart
circumstance of life, with a certain pleasure of pugnacity; and
suffered it not to check him, whether in the exercise of his
profession or the pursuit of amusement.
I.
'Birkenhead: April 18, 1858.
'Well, you should know, Mr. - having a contract to lay down a
submarine telegraph from Sardinia to Africa failed three times in
the attempt. The distance from land to land is about 140 miles.
On the first occasion, after proceeding some 70 miles, he had to
cut the cable - the cause I forget; he tried again, same result;
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