| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: cold hearths, and open doors. Give us to awake with smiles, give
us to labour smiling. As the sun returns in the east, so let our
patience be renewed with dawn; as the sun lightens the world, so
let our loving-kindness make bright this house of our habitation.
ANOTHER FOR EVENING
LORD, receive our supplications for this house, family, and
country. Protect the innocent, restrain the greedy and the
treacherous, lead us out of our tribulation into a quiet land.
Look down upon ourselves and upon our absent dear ones. Help us
and them; prolong our days in peace and honour. Give us health,
food, bright weather, and light hearts. In what we meditate of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: regular routine, and the bonds of Samoan family life began to draw
us more closely together, Tusitala felt the necessity of including
our retainers in our evening devotions. I suppose ours was the
only white man's family in all Samoa, except those of the
missionaries, where the day naturally ended with this homely,
patriarchal custom. Not only were the religious scruples of the
natives satisfied, but, what we did not foresee, our own
respectability - and incidentally that of our retainers - became
assured, and the influence of Tusitala increased tenfold.
After all work and meals were finished, the 'pu,' or war conch, was
sounded from the back veranda and the front, so that it might be
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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 Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Sailing from Ireland.'
Softly laughed Isolt;
`Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen
My dole of beauty trebled?' and he said,
`Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine,
And thine is more to me--soft, gracious, kind--
Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips
Most gracious; but she, haughty, even to him,
Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow
To make one doubt if ever the great Queen
Have yielded him her love.'
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: pay for time and trouble. In this rivalry of every kind of
industry - in the midst of this immense competition and these
countless experiments, some excellent workmen are formed who
reach the utmost limits of their craft. But they have rarely an
opportunity of displaying what they can do; they are scrupulously
sparing of their powers; they remain in a state of accomplished
mediocrity, which condemns itself, and, though it be very well
able to shoot beyond the mark before it, aims only at what it
hits. In aristocracies, on the contrary, workmen always do all
they can; and when they stop, it is because they have reached the
limit of their attainments.
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