| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: guess.'
'It is a great inheritance,' said Herrick.
'Well, I don't know about that,' returned Davis. 'Appears to
me as if it might be worse. 'Tain't worth what the cargo would
have been of course, at least not money down. But I'll tell you
what it appears to figure up to. Appears to me as if it amounted
to about the bottom dollar of the man in 'Frisco.'
''Old on,' said Huish. 'Give a fellow time; 'ow's this, umpire?'
'Well, my sons,' pursued the captain, who seemed to have
recovered his assurance, 'Wiseman and Wishart were to be paid
for casting away this old schooner and its cargo. We're going to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: down, and, accustomed as the Jackal was to his ways, he could
not help starting, for the hundredth time, when he saw how
exactly the Mugger imitated a log adrift on the bar. He had
even taken pains to lie at the exact angle a naturally stranded
log would make with the water, having regard to the current of
he season at the time and place. All this was only a matter of
habit, of course, because the Mugger had come ashore for
pleasure; but a crocodile is never quite full, and if the Jackal
had been deceived by the likeness he would not have lived to
philosophise over it.
"My child, I heard nothing," said the Mugger, shutting one eye.
The Second Jungle Book |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: ringleader; a young man robust of body as of soul, but not one of the
peers.[5] Accordingly the ephors questioned their informant: "How say
you the occurrence is to take place?" and he who gave the information
answered: "Cinadon took me to the limit of the market-place, and bade
me count how many Spartans there were in the market-place; and I
counted--'king, ephors, and elders, and others--maybe forty. But tell
me, Cinadon,' I said to him, 'why have you bidden me count them?' and
he answered me: 'Those men, I would have you know, are your sworn
foes; and all those others, more than four thousand, congregated there
are your natural allies.' Then he took and showed me in the streets,
here one and there two of 'our enemies,' as we chanced to come across
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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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: displayed by the American navy in the Samoa cyclone. Till earth
rotted in the phosphorescent star-and-stripe slime of a decayed
universe, that god-like gallantry would not be forgotten. I
grieve that I cannot give the exact words. My attempt at
reproducing their spirit is pale and inadequate. I sat
bewildered on a coruscating Niagara of blatherum-skite. It was
magnificent--it was stupendous--and I was conscious of a wicked
desire to hide my face in a napkin and grin. Then, according to
rule, they produced their dead, and across the snowy table-cloths
dragged the corpse of every man slain in the Civil War, and
hurled defiance at "our natural enemy" (England, so please you),
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