| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: dark heart of Africa. He is persuaded that a white people, of which he
has heard rumours all his life, exists somewhere on the highlands in the
vast, still unexplored interior, and his great ambition is to find them
before he dies. This is the wild quest upon which he and his companions
have departed, and from which I shrewdly suspect they never will return.
One letter only have I received from the old gentleman, dated from a
mission station high up the Tana, a river on the east coast, about three
hundred miles north of Zanzibar. In it he says that they have gone
through many hardships and adventures, but are alive and well, and have
found traces which go far towards making him hope that the results of
their wild quest may be a "magnificent and unexampled discovery." I
Long Odds |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: subordination to which they have subjected themselves, and from
which they derive actual profit. They consent to serve, and they
blush to obey; they like the advantages of service, but not the
master; or rather, they are not sure that they ought not
themselves to be masters, and they are inclined to consider him
who orders them as an unjust usurper of their own rights. Then
it is that the dwelling of every citizen offers a spectacle
somewhat analogous to the gloomy aspect of political society. A
secret and intestine warfare is going on there between powers,
ever rivals and suspicious of one another: the master is
ill-natured and weak, the servant ill-natured and intractable;
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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 Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: nursed a scheme whereby he might increase his share of the
booty by something like one hundred per cent. He alone
could sail the Cowrie, therefore the others could not leave
Jungle Island without him; but what was there to prevent
Gust, with just sufficient men to man the schooner, slipping
away from Kai Shang, Momulla the Maori, and some half
of the crew when opportunity presented?
It was for this opportunity that Gust waited. Some day
there would come a moment when Kai Shang, Momulla, and
three or four of the others would be absent from camp,
exploring or hunting. The Swede racked his brain for some plan
The Beasts of Tarzan |
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 Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: All through the autumn nights, till the wet mist
Stiffens their limbs, and fevers come, and so -
DUKE
And so they go to Abraham's bosom, Madam.
They should thank me for sending them to Heaven,
If they are wretched here.
[To the CARDINAL.]
Is it not said
Somewhere in Holy Writ, that every man
Should be contented with that state of life
God calls him to? Why should I change their state,
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