| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: they continued to approach me. I held out my hands empty; whereupon
one asked, with a strong Highland brogue, if I surrendered.
"Under protest," said I, "if ye ken what that means, which I misdoubt."
At that word, they came all in upon me like a flight of birds upon a
carrion, seized me, took my sword, and all the money from my pockets,
bound me hand and foot with some strong line, and cast me on a tussock
of bent. There they sat about their captive in a part of a circle and
gazed upon him silently like something dangerous, perhaps a lion or a
tiger on the spring. Presently this attention was relaxed. They drew
nearer together, fell to speech in the Gaelic, and very cynically
divided my property before my eyes. It was my diversion in this time
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: victims. Wherever the Scots came, there was the same scene of
horror and cruelty: women shrieking, old men lamenting, amid the
groans of the dying and the despair of the living.
But the English got the victory.
Then the chief of the men of Lothian fell, pierced by an arrow,
and all his followers were put to flight. For the Almighty was
offended at them and their strength was rent like a cobweb.
Offended at them for what? For committing those fearful
butcheries? No, for that was the common custom on both sides,
and not open to criticism. Then was it for doing the butcheries
"under cover of religion"? No, that was not it; religious
What is Man? |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: incredulity, the hasty narrative of what had befallen Isabella.
Her father concluded, addressing Sir Frederick and the other
gentlemen, who stood around in astonishment, "And now, my
friends, you see the most unhappy father in Scotland. Lend me
your assistance, gentlemen--give me your advice, Mr. Ratcliffe.
I am incapable of acting, or thinking, under the unexpected
violence of such a blow."
"Let us take our horses, call our attendants, and scour the
country in pursuit of the villains," said Sir Frederick.
"Is there no one whom you can suspect," said Ratcliffe, gravely,
"of having some motive for this strange crime? These are not the
|
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 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: the Gulf Stream the circular current, and the Sargasso Sea the central
point at which the floating bodies unite.
I share Maury's opinion, and I was able to study the phenomenon
in the very midst, where vessels rarely penetrate. Above us floated
products of all kinds, heaped up among these brownish plants;
trunks of trees torn from the Andes or the Rocky Mountains, and floated
by the Amazon or the Mississippi; numerous wrecks, remains of keels,
or ships' bottoms, side-planks stove in, and so weighted with shells
and barnacles that they could not again rise to the surface.
And time will one day justify Maury's other opinion, that these
substances thus accumulated for ages will become petrified by
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
