| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: Marais can testify. Now, as we know for sure Pieter Retief and all his
people are dead, murdered by Dingaan, how then does it happen that this
man has escaped?"
"Why do you put riddles to me, Mynheer Pereira?" asked the dark Boer.
"Doubtless the Englishman will explain."
"Certainly I will, mynheer," I said. "Is it your pleasure that I should
speak now?"
The commandant hesitated. Then, having called Henri Marais apart and
talked to him for a little while, he replied:
"No, not now, I think; the matter is too serious. After we have eaten
we will listen to your story, Mynheer Quatermain, and meanwhile I
Marie |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: could not bear that they had deserted her for me. I liked her great dreamy
blue eyes, I liked her slow walk and drawl; when I saw her sitting among
men, she seemed to me much too good to be among them; I would have given
all their compliments if she would once have smiled at me as she smiled at
them, with all her face breaking into radiance, with her dimples and
flashing teeth. But I knew it never could be; I felt sure she hated me;
that she wished I was dead; that she wished I had never come to the
village. She did not know, when we went out riding, and a man who had
always ridden beside her came to ride beside me, that I sent him away; that
once when a man thought to win my favour by ridiculing her slow drawl
before me I turned on him so fiercely that he never dared come before me
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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 Talisman by Walter Scott: so that, seen by the shadowy and religious light which the lamps
shed through the clouds of incense which darkened the apartment,
they appeared rather to glide than to walk.
But as a second time, in surrounding the chapel, they passed the
spot on which he kneeled, one of the white-stoled maidens, as she
glided by him, detached from the chaplet which she carried a
rosebud, which dropped from her fingers, perhaps unconsciously,
on the foot of Sir Kenneth. The knight started as if a dart had
suddenly struck his person; for, when the mind is wound up to a
high pitch of feeling and expectation, the slightest incident, if
unexpected, gives fire to the train which imagination has already
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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 Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: Sir Richard, his usual stateliness recovered, smiled stern approval
at each deed of daring; and when all was ended, answered with
something like a sigh:
"Would God that I had been with you every step! Would God, at
least, that I could show as good a three-years' log-book, Amyas, my
lad!"
"You can show a better one, I doubt not."
"Humph! With the exception of one paltry Spanish prize, I don't
know that the queen is the better, or her enemies the worse, for
me, since we parted last in Dublin city."
"You are too modest, sir."
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