| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: islands the clergy lived isolated, thinking other thoughts,
dwelling in a different country from their parishioners, like
missionaries in the South Seas. My grandfather's unrivalled
treasury of anecdote was never written down; it embellished
his talk while he yet was, and died with him when he died; and
such as have been preserved relate principally to the islands
of Ronaldsay and Sanday, two of the Orkney group. These
bordered on one of the water-highways of civilisation; a great
fleet passed annually in their view, and of the shipwrecks of
the world they were the scene and cause of a proportion wholly
incommensurable to their size. In one year, 1798, my
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Cruise of the Jasper B. by Don Marquis: It was like being haunted. Even when I did not see him, I began
to THINK that I saw him. He deliberately planted that
hallucination in my mind. It is a wonder that I did not go mad.
"I finally determined to flee to America. I made all my
arrangements with care and--as I thought--with secrecy. I
imagined that I had given him the slip. But he was too clever
for me. The third day out, as one of the ship's officers was
showing me about the vessel, I detected Reginald Maltravers in
the hold. It is not usual to allow women so far below decks; but
I had insisted on seeing everything. Perspiring, begrimed, and
mopping the moisture from his brow with a piece of cotton waste,
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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 Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: The captain, turning at the house end, met him face to face,
and averted his eyes. 'We've lost the two tops'ls and the
stays'l,' he gabbled. 'Good business, we didn't lose any sticks.
I guess you think we're all the better without the kites.'
'That's not what I'm thinking,' said Herrick, in a voice
strangely quiet, that yet echoed confusion in the captain's mind.
'I know that,' he cried, holding up his hand. 'I know what
you're thinking. No use to say it now. I'm sober.'
'I have to say it, though,' returned Herrick.
'Hold on, Herrick; you've said enough,' said Davis. 'You've
said what I would take from no man breathing but yourself;
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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 Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: Tatiyana. On either side of this donga the ground slopes steeply down
towards its yawning lips, and from its end a man may see the open
country. Here Chaka sat down at the end of the rift, pondering.
Presently he looked up and saw a vast multitude of men, women, and
children, who wound like a snake across the plain beneath towards the
kraal Gibamaxegu.
"I think, Mopo," said the king, "that by the colour of their shields,
yonder should be the Langeni tribe--thine own people, Mopo."
"It is my people, O King," I answered.
Then Chaka sent messengers, running swiftly, and bade them summon the
Langeni people to him where he sat. Other messengers he sent also to
Nada the Lily |
