| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: with me in kindest regards to yourself and Mrs. Charteris. - Yours
very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO S. R. CROCKETT
[SARANAC LAKE, SPRING 1888.]
DEAR MINISTER OF THE FREE KIRK AT PENICUIK, - For O, man, I cannae
read your name! - That I have been so long in answering your
delightful letter sits on my conscience badly. The fact is I let
my correspondence accumulate until I am going to leave a place; and
then I pitch in, overhaul the pile, and my cries of penitence might
be heard a mile about. Yesterday I despatched thirty-five belated
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: named, nor uttered, nor known, nor perceived, nor imagined. But can all
this be true? 'I think not.'
1.b. Let us, however, commence the inquiry again. We have to work out all
the consequences which follow on the assumption that the one is. If one
is, one partakes of being, which is not the same with one; the words
'being' and 'one' have different meanings. Observe the consequence: In
the one of being or the being of one are two parts, being and one, which
form one whole. And each of the two parts is also a whole, and involves
the other, and may be further subdivided into one and being, and is
therefore not one but two; and thus one is never one, and in this way the
one, if it is, becomes many and infinite. Again, let us conceive of a one
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: warriors of Okar aided in the deception; and for wear beyond the
hothouse cities we each had suits of the black- and yellow-striped orluk.
Talu gave us careful directions for the journey to Kadabra, the
capital city of the Okar nation, which is the racial name of the
yellow men. This good friend even accompanied us part way, and then,
promising to aid us in any way that he found possible, bade us adieu.
On parting he slipped upon my finger a curiously wrought ring set with
a dead-black, lusterless stone, which appeared more like a bit of
bituminous coal than the priceless Barsoomian gem which in reality it is.
The Warlord of Mars |
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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: and he. Yet I would like it very ill if my young friend were to
misjudge his father. He has all the Roman virtues: Cato and Brutus were
such; I think a son's heart might well be proud of such an ancestry of
one."
"And I would sooner he were a plaided herd," cried Archie, with sudden
bitterness.
"And that is neither very wise, nor I believe entirely true," returned
Glenalmond. "Before you are done you will find some of these
expressions rise on you like a remorse. They are merely literary and
decorative; they do not aptly express your thought, nor is your thought
clearly apprehended, and no doubt your father (if he were here) would
|
