| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: And at thy age, too. Shame on thee! Umslopogaas.'
'Ay, Macumazahn, mine is a red trade, yet is it better and more
honest than some. Better is it to slay a man in fair fight than
to suck out his heart's blood in buying and selling and usury
after your white fashion. Many a man have I slain, yet is there
never a one that I should fear to look in the face again, ay,
many are there who once were friends, and whom I should be right
glad to snuff with. But there! there! thou hast thy ways, and
I mine: each to his own people and his own place. The high-veldt
ox will die in the fat bush country, and so is it with me, Macumazahn.
I am rough, I know it, and when my blood is warm I know not
Allan Quatermain |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: From the King upon the guddee to the Beggar at the gate.
All things made he--Shiva the Preserver.
Mahadeo! Mahadeo! He made all--
Thorn for the camel, fodder for the kine,
And mother's heart for sleepy head, O little son of mine!
Little Toomai came in with a joyous tunk-a-tunk at the end of
each verse, till he felt sleepy and stretched himself on the
fodder at Kala Nag's side. At last the elephants began to lie
down one after another as is their custom, till only Kala Nag at
the right of the line was left standing up; and he rocked slowly
from side to side, his ears put forward to listen to the night
The Jungle Book |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was
tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and
legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that
might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely
hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge
ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it
looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell
which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of
a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering
about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine
descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
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 A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: lessons before he could place a copy anywhere in the provinces."
"If you but knew the class of people that we have to do with!"
exclaimed Cavalier.
"Saint Bartholomew would suit better," continued Fendant.
"Catherine de' Medici, or France under Charles IX., would sound more
like one of Scott's novels," added Cavalier.
"We will settle it when the work is printed," said Fendant.
"Do as you please, so long as I approve your title," said Lucien.
The agreement was read over, signed in duplicate, and each of the
contracting parties took their copy. Lucien put the bills in his
pocket with unequaled satisfaction, and the four repaired to Fendant's
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