| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: forecastles of American whalers. Some of them are done with much
accuracy.
At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales
hung by the tail for knockers to the road-side door. When the porter
is sleepy, the anvil-headed whale would be best. But these knocking
whales are seldom remarkable as faithful essays. On the spires of
some old-fashioned churches you will see sheet-iron whales placed
there for weather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that
are to all intents and purposes so labelled with "HANDS OFF!" you
cannot examine them closely enough to decide upon their merit.
In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: With such a goodly time too out of tune
To love it much: for like the Dial's wheel
That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon
Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes
Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies.
O for one grand unselfish simple life
To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills
Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife
Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,
Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly
Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!
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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 A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: establishing only so much of the neutral territory as should hamper
Mataafa, and leaving in abeyance all that could incommode Tamasese.
By drawing the boundary where he now proposed, across the isthmus,
he protected the firm, drove back the Mataafas out of almost all
that they had conquered, and, so far from disturbing Tamasese,
actually fortified him in his old position.
The real story of the negotiations that followed we shall perhaps
never learn. But so much is plain: that while Becker was thus
outwardly straining decency in the interest of Tamasese, he was
privately intriguing, or pretending to intrigue, with Mataafa. In
his despatch of the 11th, he had given an extended criticism of
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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 Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: felt as if she had either broke adrift before the wind or were
in the act of sinking; but, when another sea came, she ranged
up against it with great force, and this became the regular
intimation of our being still riding at anchor.
About eleven o'clock, the writer with some difficulty got
out of bed, but, in attempting to dress, he was thrown twice
upon the floor at the opposite end of the cabin. In an
undressed state he made shift to get about half-way up the
companion-stairs, with an intention to observe the state of
the sea and of the ship upon deck; but he no sooner looked
over the companion than a heavy sea struck the vessel, which
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