| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: sight; should I find a friend at all among the living? Since I
read the letters which Captain Bell of the 'Adventuress' had
brought me before I sailed for Hispaniola, I had heard no tidings
from my home, and what tidings awaited me now? Above all what of
Lily, was she dead or married or gone?
Mounting my horse I pushed on again at a canter, taking the road
past Waingford Mills through the fords and Pirnhow town, leaving
Bungay upon my left. In ten minutes I was at the gate of the
bridle path that runs from the Norwich road for half a mile or more
beneath the steep and wooded bank under the shelter of which stands
the Lodge at Ditchingham. By the gate a man loitered in the last
Montezuma's Daughter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: it did not trouble us much; we had fared much harder before.
We arrived at Newport the next morning, and soon after an
old fashioned stage-coach, with "New Bedford" in large yellow letters
on its sides, came down to the wharf. I had not money enough to pay our fare,
and stood hesitating what to do. Fortunately for us, there were two
Quaker gentlemen who were about to take passage on the stage,--
Friends William C. Taber and Joseph Ricketson,--who at once discerned
our true situation, and, in a peculiarly quiet way, addressing me,
Mr. Taber said: "Thee get in." I never obeyed an order with more alacrity,
and we were soon on our way to our new home. When we reached "Stone Bridge"
the passengers alighted for breakfast, and paid their fares to the driver.
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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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: And the music breaks into bright pieces, and joins together again, and
again breaks, and is dissolved, and the crowd scatters, moving slowly up
the hill.
At the corner of the road the stalls begin.
"Ticklers! Tuppence a tickler! 'Ool 'ave a tickler? Tickle 'em up,
boys." Little soft brooms on wire handles. They are eagerly bought by the
soldiers.
"Buy a golliwog! Tuppence a golliwog!"
"Buy a jumping donkey! All alive-oh!"
"Su-perior chewing gum. Buy something to do, boys."
"Buy a rose. Give 'er a rose, boy. Roses, lady?"
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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 Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: suffer the ignominy of being shot in the back, like a coward, if he
made any such attempt.
And so, despairing but not resigned, he took his stand on the very edge
of the ditch. In an irony of obligingness he set half of his heels over
the yoid, so that he was nicely balanced upon the edge of the cutting,
and must go backwards and down into the mud when hit.
It was this position he had taken that gave him an inspiration in that
last moment. The sergeant had moved away out of the line of fire, and
he stood there alone, waiting, erect and with his head held high, his
eyes upon the grey mass of musketeers - blurred alike by mist and
semi-darkness - some twenty paces distant along the line of which glowed
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