| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: reading a novel, looking up with mild and pleasant interest when he
caught a larger fish than usual, as an older and wiser person looks
at a child playing some innocent game. Those days of a divided
interest between man and wife were gone. She was now fully
converted, and more. Beekman and Cornelia were one; and she was the
one.
The last time I saw the De Peysters he was following her along the
Beaverkill, carrying a landing-net and a basket, but no rod. She
paused for a moment to exchange greetings, and then strode on down
the stream. He lingered for a few minutes longer to light a pipe.
"Well, old man," I said, "you certainly have succeeded in making an
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: A moment's blur of the eyes - and a man with a torch again.
And the torch had scarcely been shaken. "Ah, surely," Rahero said,
"She will deem it a trick of the eyes, a fancy born in the head;
But time must be given the fool to nourish a fool's belief."
So for a while, a sedulous fisher, he walked the reef,
Pausing at times and gazing, striking at times with the spear:
- Lastly, uttered the call; and even as the boat drew near,
Like a man that was done with its use, tossed the torch in the sea.
Lightly he leaped on the boat beside the woman; and she
Lightly addressed him, and yielded the paddle and place to sit;
For now the torch was extinguished the night was black as the pit
Ballads |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: Ariovistus respondit: si quid ipsi a Caesare opus esset, sese ad eum
venturum fuisse; si quid ille se velit, illum ad se venire oportere.
Praeterea se neque sine exercitu in eas partes Galliae venire audere quas
Caesar possideret, neque exercitum sine magno commeatu atque molimento in
unum locum contrahere posse. Sibi autem mirum videri quid in sua Gallia,
quam bello vicisset, aut Caesari aut omnino populo Romano negotii esset.
His responsis ad Caesarem relatis, iterum ad eum Caesar legatos cum
his mandatis mittit: quoniam tanto suo populique Romani beneficio
adtectus, cum in consulatu suo rex atque amicus a senatu appellatus esset,
hanc sibi populoque Romano gratiam referret ut in conloquium venire
invitatus gravaretur neque de communi re dicendum sibi et cognoscendum
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: of man was ours; yet did we never cry out that it was too heavy for us.
While savage man lay in the sunshine on his skins, resting, that he might
be fitted for war or the chase, or while he shaped his weapons of death, he
ate and drank that which our hands had provided for him; and while we knelt
over our grindstone, or hoed in the fields, with one child in our womb,
perhaps, and one on our back, toiling till the young body was old before
its time--did we ever cry out that the labour allotted to us was too hard
for us? Did we not know that the woman who threw down her burden was as a
man who cast away his shield in battle--a coward and a traitor to his race?
Man fought--that was his work; we fed and nurtured the race--that was ours.
We knew that upon our labours, even as upon man's, depended the life and
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