| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: reason points out."
"True, aunt; but you are a wilful wanderer, who should be forced
back into the right path."
"Spare me, I entreat you," replied Aunt Margaret. "You remember
the Gaelic song, though I dare say I mispronounce the words--
'Hatil mohatil, na dowski mi.'
(I am asleep, do not waken me.)
I tell you, kinsman, that the sort of waking dreams which my
imagination spins out, in what your favourite Wordsworth calls
'moods of my own mind,' are worth all the rest of my more active
days. Then, instead of looking forwards, as I did in youth, and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: he repeated, stopping short and looking at Dain fixedly.
He went on again towards Nina, and Dain remained behind. Almayer
approached his daughter and stood for a time looking down on her.
She did not open her eyes, but hearing footsteps near her,
murmured in a low sob, "Dain."
Almayer hesitated for a minute and then sank on the sand by her
side. She, not hearing a responsive word, not feeling a touch,
opened her eyes--saw her father, and sat up suddenly with a
movement of terror.
"Oh, father!" she murmured faintly, and in that word there was
expressed regret and fear and dawning hope.
Almayer's Folly |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: seemed to know, too, that they could come back to the gravel to look
for crumbs again.
Then, as the little girls were again eating their cakes, one little
girl said: ``Sister Angela, were they Sisters?''
Sister Angela said: ``No, they are not Sisters.''
Then another little girl asked: ``Sister Angela, what were they,
then?''
Sister Angela said: ``They are only just ladies.''
Then always after that Bessie Bell and the other little girls were
glad when Only-Just-Ladies came to see them.
The sun shone nearly always, or it seemed to the little girls that
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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 Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: And the children gleaned it in playing, and ate and carried it home;
And the elders stared and debated, and wondered and passed the jest,
But whenever a guest came by eagerly questioned the guest;
And little by little, from one to another, the word went round:
"In all the borders of Paea the victual rots on the ground,
And swine are plenty as rats. And now, when they fare to the sea,
The men of the Namunu-ura glean from under the tree
And load the canoe to the gunwale with all that is toothsome to eat;
And all day long on the sea the jaws are crushing the meat,
The steersman eats at the helm, the rowers munch at the oar,
And at length, when their bellies are full, overboard with the store!"
Ballads |
