| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: we inherit our constitution; we stand buffet among friends and
enemies; we may be so built as to feel a sneer or an aspersion with
unusual keenness, and so circumstanced as to be unusually exposed
to them; we may have nerves very sensitive to pain, and be
afflicted with a disease very painful. Virtue will not help us,
and it is not meant to help us. It is not even its own reward,
except for the self-centred and - I had almost said - the
unamiable. No man can pacify his conscience; if quiet be what he
want, he shall do better to let that organ perish from disuse. And
to avoid the penalties of the law, and the minor CAPITIS DIMINUTIO
of social ostracism, is an affair of wisdom - of cunning, if you
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: Even across a little stream that bounds the garden on the east,
and right in the middle of the cornfield beyond, there is an immense one,
a picture of grace and glory against the cold blue of the spring sky.
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My garden is surrounded by cornfields and meadows,
and beyond are great stretches of sandy heath and pine forests,
and where the forests leave off the bare heath begins again;
but the forests are beautiful in their lofty, pink-stemmed vastness,
far overhead the crowns of softest gray-green, and underfoot a bright
green wortleberry carpet, and everywhere the breathless silence;
and the bare heaths are beautiful too, for one can see across them
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: Clara, I am in a strange position. When I think how it has come to pass, I
know it, indeed, and I know it not. But I have only to look upon Egmont,
and I understand it all; ay, and stranger things would seem natural then.
Oh, what a man he is! All the provinces worship him. And in his arms,
should I not be the happiest creature in the world?
Mother. And how will it be in the future?
Clara. I only ask, does he love me?--does he love me?--as if there were
any doubt about it.
Mother. One has nothing but anxiety of heart with one's children. Always
care and sorrow, whatever may be the end of it! It cannot come to good!
Thou hast made thyself wretched! Thou hast made thy Mother wretched
Egmont |
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 A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: quarter of the town for guides, and proceeded to the reef. Here,
diving with a rope, they got the gun aboard; and the night being
then come, returned by the same route in the shallow water along
shore, singing a boat-song. It will be seen with what childlike
reliance they had accepted the neutrality of Apia bay; they came
for the gun without concealment, laboriously dived for it in broad
day under the eyes of the town and shipping, and returned with it,
singing as they went. On Grevsmuhl's wharf, a light showed them a
crowd of German blue-jackets clustered, and a hail was heard.
"Stop the singing so that we may hear what is said," said one of
the chiefs in the TAUMUALUA. The song ceased; the hail was heard
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