| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: an omission in the family chronicle.
"Is there not a girl too?" he asked.
"Ay: Kirstie. She was named for me, or my grandmother at least - it's
the same thing," returned the aunt, and went on again about Dand, whom
she secretly preferred by reason of his gallantries.
"But what is your niece like?" said Archie at the next opportunity.
"Her? As black's your hat! But I dinna suppose she would maybe be what
you would ca' ILL-LOOKED a'thegither. Na, she's a kind of a handsome
jaud - a kind o' gipsy," said the aunt, who had two sets of scales for
men and women - or perhaps it would be more fair to say that she had
three, and the third and the most loaded was for girls.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: name was Caecius, "he who blinds or darkens," and it
corresponds literally to the name of the Greek demon Kaikias,
whom an old proverb, preserved by Aulus Gellius, describes as
a stealer of the clouds.[111]
[110] There is nothing in common between the names Hercules
and Herakles. The latter is a compound, formed like
Themistokles; the former is a simple derivative from the root
of hercere, "to enclose." If Herakles had any equivalent in
Latin, it would necessarily begin with S, and not with H, as
septa corresponds to epta, sequor to epomai, etc. It should be
noted, however, that Mommsen, in the fourth edition of his
Myths and Myth-Makers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: him, about twenty feet off, he perceived who they were. The first
man was himself - Maskull. The second was Krag. The third man was
Nightspore. Their faces were grim and set.
The source of the drumming was out of sight. The sound appeared to
come from some point in front of them. Maskull and Dreamsinter put
themselves in motion, to keep up with the swiftly moving marchers.
At the same time a low, faint music began.
Its rhythm stepped with the drum beats, but, unlike the latter, it
did not seem to proceed from any particular quarter of the forest.
It resembled the subjective music heard in dreams, which accompanies
the dreamer everywhere, as a sort of natural atmosphere, rendering
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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 Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: prosecutable in any court of law, but flattering to the fancy and a
great alleviation of idle hours. A man's claim to his own past is
yet less valid. A paper might turn up (in proper story-book
fashion) in the secret drawer of an old ebony secretary, and
restore your family to its ancient honours, and reinstate mine in a
certain West Indian islet (not far from St. Kitt's, as beloved
tradition hummed in my young ears) which was once ours, and is now
unjustly some one else's, and for that matter (in the state of the
sugar trade) is not worth anything to anybody. I do not say that
these revolutions are likely; only no man can deny that they are
possible; and the past, on the other baud, is, lost for ever: our
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