| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: sense believes in. He was initiated into the Sat Bhai at Allahabad
once, when he was on leave; he knew the Lizard-Song of the Sansis,
and the Halli-Hukk dance, which is a religious can-can of a
startling kind. When a man knows who dances the Halli-Hukk, and
how, and when, and where, he knows something to be proud of. He
has gone deeper than the skin. But Strickland was not proud,
though he had helped once, at Jagadhri, at the Painting of the
Death Bull, which no Englishman must even look upon; had mastered
the thieves'-patter of the changars; had taken a Eusufzai horse-
thief alone near Attock; and had stood under the mimbar-board of a
Border mosque and conducted service in the manner of a Sunni
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: lovers.
CHAPTER 6
A boy's life is of a very flexible sort. It takes but a little
while for it to shape itself to any new surroundings in which it
may be thrown, to make itself new friends, to settle itself to
new habits; and so it was that Myles fell directly into the ways
of the lads of Devlen. On his first morning, as he washed his
face and hands with the other squires and pages in a great tank
of water in the armory court-yard, he presently found himself
splashing and dashing with the others, laughing and shouting as
loud as any, and calling some by their Christian names as though
Men of Iron |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: travelers, he reined in his wooden steed and
dismounted, greeting the Shaggy Man with a smiling
nod. Then he turned to stare at the Patchwork Girl
in wonder, while she in turn stared at him.
"Shags," he whispered, drawing the Shaggy Man
aside, "pat me into shape, there's a good fellow!"
While his friend punched and patted the
Scarecrow's body, to smooth out the humps, Scraps
turned to Ojo and whispered: "Roll me out, please;
I've sagged down dreadfully from walking so much
and men like to see a stately figure."
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
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 A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: the two figures were appropriately framed.
The most selfish soul who chanced to see this domestic scene would
carry away with him a perfect image of the life led in Paris by the
working class of women, for the embroideress evidently lived by her
needle. Many, as they passed through the turnstile, found themselves
wondering how a girl could preserve her color, living in such a
cellar. A student of lively imagination, going that way to cross to
the Quartier-Latin, would compare this obscure and vegetative life to
that of the ivy that clung to these chill walls, to that of the
peasants born to labor, who are born, toil, and die unknown to the
world they have helped to feed. A house-owner, after studying the
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