| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: we had caught them unawares; their whole party (as I was to learn
afterwards) had not yet reached the scene; what there was of them was
spread among the bents towards Gillane. It was quite an affair to call
them in and bring them over, and the boat was making speed. They were
besides but cowardly fellows: a mere leash of Highland cattle-thieves,
of several clans, no gentleman there to be the captain and the more
they looked at Alan and me upon the beach, the less (I must suppose)
they liked the look of us.
Whoever had betrayed Alan it was not the captain: he was in the skiff
himself, steering and stirring up his oarsmen, like a man with his
heart in his employ. Already he was near in, and the boat securing -
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: and dat why fo' I jaw him jus' now when you come in an' stop him. He de
cahpentah, my gran'son, Cha's Coteswuth."
XII: From the Bedside
Next morning when I saw the weltering sky I resigned myself to a day of
dullness; yet before its end I had caught a bright new glimpse of John
Mayrant's abilities, and also had come, through tribulation, to a further
understanding of the South; so that I do not, to-day, regret the
tribulation. As the rain disappointed me of two outdoor expeditions, to
which I had been for some little while looking forward, I dedicated most
of my long morning to a sadly neglected correspondence, and trusted that
the expeditions, as soon as the next fine weather visited Kings Port,
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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 Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: demarcation would at least be drawn in the right place. The
distinction between psychical and material phenomena is a
distinction of a different order from all other distinctions
known to philosophy, and it immeasurably transcends all others.
The progress of modern discovery has in no respect weakened the
force of Descartes's remark, that between that of which the
differential attribute is Thought and that of which the
differential attribute is Extension, there can be no similarity,
no community of nature whatever. By no scientific cunning of
experiment or deduction can Thought be weighed or measured or in
any way assimilated to such things as may be made the actual or
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
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 Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: twenty feet of tail and a shape that quivered all along the
outlines. The girl saw it too, but instead of crying aloud with
terror, said quietly, "That is Quiquern. What comes after?"
"He will speak to me," said Kotuko; but the snow-knife trembled
in his hand as he spoke, because however much a man may believe
that he is a friend of strange and ugly spirits, he seldom likes
to be taken quite at his word. Quiquern, too, is the phantom of
a gigantic toothless dog without any hair, who is supposed to
live in the far North, and to wander about the country just
before things are going to happen. They may be pleasant or
unpleasant things, but not even the sorcerers care to speak
The Second Jungle Book |
