| 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: When all was done I hurried to the palace to tell Otomie what had
come to pass, and found her in our sleeping chamber lying on her
bed.
'What ails you, Otomie?' I asked.
'Alas! my husband,' she answered, 'the pestilence has stricken me.
Come not near, I pray you, come not near. Let me be nursed by the
women. You shall not risk your life for me, beloved.'
'Peace,' I said and came to her. It was too true, I who am a
physician knew the symptoms well. Indeed had it not been for my
skill, Otomie would have died. For three long weeks I fought with
death at her bedside, and in the end I conquered. The fever left
Montezuma's Daughter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered:
those who know what beauty is, and those who know what sorrow is:
nobody else interests me. Nor am I making any demands on life. In
all that I have said I am simply concerned with my own mental
attitude towards life as a whole; and I feel that not to be ashamed
of having been punished is one of the first points I must attain
to, for the sake of my own perfection, and because I am so
imperfect.
Then I must learn how to be happy. Once I knew it, or thought I
knew it, by instinct. It was always springtime once in my heart.
My temperament was akin to joy. I filled my life to the very brim
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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 Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: Rawal. Whose cattle are YE?"
"It is a lost trail," said Mowgli, turning to Kaa. "I know not
his talk."
"Nor I. He is very old. Father of Cobras, there is only the
Jungle here, as it has been since the beginning."
"Then who is HE," said the White Cobra, "sitting down before
me, unafraid, knowing not the name of the King, talking our
talk through a man's lips? Who is he with the knife and the
snake's tongue?"
"Mowgli they call me," was the answer. "I am of the Jungle.
The wolves are my people, and Kaa here is my brother. Father
The Second Jungle Book |
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 First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: him, and the goad-bearers on either side, watchful, yet open-mouthed - a
blue monochrome. And after all, I do remember one other thing besides the
purely personal affair, which is, that a sort of gutter came presently
across the floor of the cavern, and then ran along by the side of the path
of rock we followed. And it was full of that same bright blue luminous
stuff that flowed out of the great machine. I walked close beside it, and
I can testify it radiated not a particle of heat. It was brightly shining,
and yet it was neither warmer nor colder than anything else in the cavern.
Clang, clang, clang, we passed right under the thumping levers of another
vast machine, and so came at last to a wide tunnel, in which we could even
hear the pad, pad, of our shoeless feet, and which, save for the trickling
The First Men In The Moon |
