| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: as much land as he cared to have cleared: it was neither
more nor less than a fortune.
Whether it was fortune or seclusion from his kind that
Mr. Van Wyk sought, he could not have pitched upon
a better place. Even the mail-boats of the subsidized
company calling on the veriest clusters of palm-thatched
hovels along the coast steamed past the mouth of Batu
Beru river far away in the offing. The contract was
old: perhaps in a few years' time, when it had expired,
Batu Beru would be included in the service; meantime
all Mr. Van Wyk's mail was addressed to Malacca,
End of the Tether |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: he had been blaming himself while dreading his wife's return, no doubt
fully informed at the ball of an infidelity he had hoped to hide from
her; and, as is the way of lovers conscious of their guilt, he tried,
by being the first to find fault, to escape her just anger. Happy in
seeing her husband smile, and in finding him at this hour in a room
whither of late he had come more rarely, the Countess looked at him so
tenderly that she blushed and cast down her eyes. Her clemency
enraptured Soulanges all the more, because this scene followed on the
misery he had endured at the ball. He seized his wife's hand and
kissed it gratefully. Is not gratitude often a part of love?
"Hortense, what is that on your finger that has hurt my lip so much?"
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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 Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: these woods a hundred years, I never should have run across that
thing.
Next Day
I have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it is
perfectly plain that they are the same breed. I was going to stuff
one of them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it
for some reason or other; so I have relinquished the idea, though
I think it is a mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science
if they should get away. The old one is tamer than it was, and
can laugh and talk like the parrot, having learned this, no doubt,
from being with the parrot so much, and having the imitative faculty
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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 A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: things like a hungry, thirsty, naked, poor, imprisoned, sick
soul. O what a blessed marriage and home were that where such
parents were to be found! Truly it would be a real Church, a
chosen cloister, yea, a paradise. Of such says Psalm cxxviii:
"Blessed are they that fear God, and walk in His Commandments;
thou shalt eat of the labor of thine hands; therefore thou shalt
be happy, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as
a fruitful vine in thine house, and thy children shall be as the
young scions of laden olive trees about thy table. Behold, thus
shall the man be blessed, that feareth the Lord," etc. Where are
such parents? Where are they that ask after good works? Here none
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