| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: battle. Pride filled him, but emptied away in the same instant, for a
voice on the road behind him spoke inquiringly through the darkness.
"Did any one fall out?" said the voice. "Who fell out?"
"Billy!" shrieked Bertie, cold all over. "Billy, are you hurt "
"Did Billy fall out?" said the voice, with plaintive cadence. "Poor
Billy!"
"He can't be," muttered Bertie. "Are you?" he loudly repeated.
There was no answer: but steps came along the road as Bertie checked and
pacified the gelding. Then Billy appeared by the wheel. "Poor Billy
fell out," he said mildly. He held something up, which Bertie took. It
had been Billy's straw hat, now a brimless fabric of ruin. Except for
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: thus sang the praises of her kinsfolk, and manifestly relished their
virtues and (I may say) their vices like a thing creditable to herself,
there should appear not the least sign of cordiality between the house
of Hermiston and that of Cauldstaneslap. Going to church of a Sunday,
as the lady housekeeper stepped with her skirts kilted, three tucks of
her white petticoat showing below, and her best India shawl upon her
back (if the day were fine) in a pattern of radiant dyes, she would
sometimes overtake her relatives preceding her more leisurely in the
same direction. Gib of course was absent: by skreigh of day he had been
gone to Crossmichael and his fellow-heretics; but the rest of the family
would be seen marching in open order: Hob and Dand, stiff-necked,
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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 Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: And you, Master, might have turned out a murd----a homicide, just
out of pure respect for your father's memory."
"There is more sense in your language, Bucklaw," replied the
Master, "than might have been expected from your conduct. It is
too true, our vices steal upon us in forms outwardly as fair as
those of the demons whom the superstitious represent as
intriguing with the human race, and are not discovered in their
native hideousness until we have clasped them in our arms."
"But we may throw them from us, though," said Bucklaw, "and that
is what I shall think of doing one of these days--that is, when
old Lady Girnington dies."
The Bride of Lammermoor |
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 Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: changed in a flash from that of brooding power to one of moved and
anxious girlhood; in short, it became most sweetly feminine.
"You are Mameena?" I said; "is it not so?"
"Oh, yes, Inkoosi," she answered, "that is my poor name. But how did
you hear it, and how do you know me?"
"I heard it from one Saduko"--here she frowned a little--"and others,
and I knew you because you are so beautiful"--an incautious speech at
which she broke into a dazzling smile and tossed her deer-like head.
"Am I?" she asked. "I never knew it, who am only a common Zulu girl to
whom it pleases the great white chief to say kind things, for which I
thank him"; and she made a graceful little reverence, just bending one
Child of Storm |
