| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: threads of smoke that were rising from his cigarette. 'Yes,' he
said, after a pause, 'quite different.'
There was something in the tone of his voice, a slight touch of
bitterness perhaps, that excited my curiosity. 'Did you ever know
anybody who did that?' I cried.
'Yes,' he answered, throwing his cigarette into the fire, - 'a
great friend of mine, Cyril Graham. He was very fascinating, and
very foolish, and very heartless. However, he left me the only
legacy I ever received in my life.'
'What was that?' I exclaimed. Erskine rose from his seat, and
going over to a tall inlaid cabinet that stood between the two
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: referred to a defect in his person, was something of an insult; but I
had been insulted, and meant to give him "a Roland for his Oliver."
However, he took it in good part.
"What is good fortune, Macumazahn?" Umbelazi replied as he grasped my
hand. "Sometimes I think that to live and prosper is good fortune, and
sometimes I think that to die and sleep is good fortune, for in sleep
there is neither hunger nor thirst of body or of spirit. In sleep there
come no cares; in sleep ambitions are at rest; nor do those who look no
more upon the sun smart beneath the treacheries of false women or false
friends. Should the battle turn against me, Macumazahn, at least that
good fortune will be mine, for never will I live to be crushed beneath
Child of Storm |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: The vain tumultuous passions of the hour
Fleet fast and disappear; and as the sun
Shines on the wake of tempests, there is cast
O'er all the shattered ruins of my past
A strong contentment as of battles won.
And yet I cry in anguish, as I hear
The long drawn pageant of your passage roll
Magnificently forth into the night.
To yon fair land ye come from, to yon sphere
Of strength and love where now ye shape your flight,
O even wings of music, bear my soul!
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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 Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: he tried to take his gold with him, and it was his gold that dragged
him down to the bottom. The learned man had scoffed at the charlatan
and at the fools who listened to him; and when he heard the mysterious
stranger propose to the passengers that they should walk on the waves,
he began to laugh, and the ocean swallowed him. The girl was dragged
down into the depths by her lover. The Bishop and the older lady went
to the bottom, heavily laden with sins, it may be, but still more
heavily laden with incredulity and confidence in idols, weighted down
by devotion, into which alms-deeds and true religion entered but
little.
The faithful flock, who walked with a firm step high and dry above the
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