| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: that spared for nothing, whether to eat or to drink, or to wear;
and for all he paid in bright new dollars. "Bright as Kalamake's
dollars," was another saying in the Eight Isles. Yet he neither
sold, nor planted, nor took hire - only now and then from his
sorceries - and there was no source conceivable for so much silver
coin.
It chanced one day Keola's wife was gone upon a visit to
Kaunakakai, on the lee side of the island, and the men were forth
at the sea-fishing. But Keola was an idle dog, and he lay in the
verandah and watched the surf beat on the shore and the birds fly
about the cliff. It was a chief thought with him always - the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: Master in London under the name of "Brother Lothringen," to the
discontent of Maria Theresa, whose woman's wit saw farther than her
husband. Englishmen and Scotchmen introduced the new society into
Russia and into Geneva. Sweden and Poland seem to have received it
from France; while, in the South, it seems to have been exclusively
an English plant. Sackville, Duke of Middlesex, is said to have
founded the first lodge at Florence in 1733, Lord Coleraine at
Gibraltar and Madrid, one Gordon in Portugal; and everywhere, at the
commencement of the movement, we find either London or Scotland the
mother-lodges, introducing on the Continent those liberal and humane
ideas of which England was then considered, to her glory, as the
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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 Virginian by Owen Wister: The Doctor's eye glared righteously about him. None of us, I
think, trembled; or, if we did, it was with emotions other than
fear. Mrs. Henry at once introduced the subject of trout-fishing,
and thus happily removed us from the edge of whatever sort of
precipice we seemed to have approached; for Dr. MacBride had
brought his rod. He dilated upon this sport with fervor, and we
assured him that the streams upon the west slope of the Bow Leg
Mountains would afford him plenty of it. Thus we ended our meal
in carefully preserved amity.
XX. THE JUDGE IGNORES PARTICULARS
"Do you often have these visitations?" Ogden inquired of Judge
The Virginian |
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 Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: with a bone handle beginning to turn yellow, a two-pronged fork as
thin as a wafer, and a salt-cellar incapable of being made to stand
upright.
Following the accepted custom, our hero entered into conversation with
the woman, and inquired whether she herself or a landlord kept the
tavern; how much income the tavern brought in; whether her sons lived
with her; whether the oldest was a bachelor or married; whom the
eldest had taken to wife; whether the dowry had been large; whether
the father-in-law had been satisfied, and whether the said
father-in-law had not complained of receiving too small a present at
the wedding. In short, Chichikov touched on every conceivable point.
Dead Souls |
