| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: wherewith to follow the buffalo-herds, which they could never
follow on foot, must have done ten times more towards keeping them
alive, than he has done towards destroying them by giving them the
chance of a week's drunkenness twice a year, when they came in to
his forts to sell the skins which, without his gifts, they would
never have got.
Such a race would, of course, if wanting vitality, crave for
stimulants. But if the stimulants, and not the original want of
vitality, combined with morals utterly detestable, and worthy only
of the gallows--and here I know what I say, and dare not tell what
I know, from eye-witnesses--have been the cause of the Red
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: him; the air was pure and transparent; the dense clusters of stars in
the Milky Way, crossing the sky like a belt, were flooded with light.
From time to time Andrii in some degree lost consciousness, and a
light mist of dream veiled the heavens from him for a moment; but then
he awoke, and they became visible again.
During one of these intervals it seemed to him that some strange human
figure flitted before him. Thinking it to be merely a vision which
would vanish at once, he opened his eyes, and beheld a withered,
emaciated face bending over him, and gazing straight into his own.
Long coal-black hair, unkempt, dishevelled, fell from beneath a dark
veil which had been thrown over the head; whilst the strange gleam of
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: clear in our teeth from the first, and for all the windings
of the road it managed to keep clear in our teeth until the
end.
For some two miles we rattled through the valley, skirting
the eastern foothills; then we struck off to the right,
through haugh-land, and presently, crossing a dry water-
course, entered the Toll road, or, to be more local, entered
on "the grade." The road mounts the near shoulder of Mount
Saint Helena, bound northward into Lake County. In one place
it skirts along the edge of a narrow and deep canyon, filled
with trees, and I was glad, indeed, not to be driven at this
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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 Richard III by William Shakespeare: Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen-indeed, of all.
I do not know that Englishman alive
With whom my soul is any jot at odds
More than the infant that is born to-night.
I thank my God for my humility.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. A holy day shall this be kept hereafter.
I would to God all strifes were well compounded.
My sovereign lord, I do beseech your Highness
To take our brother Clarence to your grace.
GLOUCESTER. Why, madam, have I off'red love for this,
To be so flouted in this royal presence?
Richard III |
