| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: disappointment with their frailties. Bless our family, bless our
forest house, bless our island helpers. Thou who hast made for us
this place of ease and hope, accept and inflame our gratitude; help
us to repay, in service one to another, the debt of thine unmerited
benefits and mercies, so that, when the period of our stewardship
draws to a conclusion, when the windows begin to be darkened, when
the bond of the family is to be loosed, there shall be no
bitterness of remorse in our farewells.
Help us to look back on the long way that Thou hast brought us, on
the long days in which we have been served, not according to our
deserts, but our desires; on the pit and the miry clay, the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: to go and do it, sir, in the living flesh!
I thought Bourget was a friend of yours? And I thought the French
were a polite race? He has taken my dedication with a stately
silence that has surprised me into apoplexy. Did I go and dedicate
my book to the nasty alien, and the 'norrid Frenchman, and the
Bloody Furrineer? Well, I wouldn't do it again; and unless his
case is susceptible of explanation, you might perhaps tell him so
over the walnuts and the wine, by way of speeding the gay hours.
Sincerely, I thought my dedication worth a letter.
If anything be worth anything here below! Do you know the story of
the man who found a button in his hash, and called the waiter?
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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 Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "Spies!"
"Oh, no!" cried Sara Lee.
"Spies," she repeated. "A man and a woman, pretending to be Belgian
refugees. They took them away at daylight. I expect by now they've
been shot."
Sara Lee ate very little breakfast that morning. All through England
it was confidently believed that spies were shot on discovery, a theory
that has been persistent - and false, save at the battle line - since
the beginning of the war. And Henri's plan assumed new proportions.
Suppose she made her attempt and failed? Suppose they took her for a
spy, and that tomorrow's sun found her facing a firing squad? Not,
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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 The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: Fowler. And when he meets a man of genius, he instinctively
insults him, starves him, and, if possible, imprisons and kills
him.
Now I do not pretend to be perfect myself. Heaven knows I have to
struggle hard enough every day with what the Germans call my
higher impulses. I know too well the temptation to be moral, to
be self-sacrificing, to be loyal and patriotic, to be respectable
and well-spoken of. But I wrestle with it and--as far as human
fraility will allow--conquer it, whereas the German abandons
himself to it without scruple or reflection, and is actually
proud of his pious intemperance and self-indulgence. Nothing will
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