| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: had gone to the making of it; nor a Scotch boy who had not eaten
many a bit of whinstone, and been all the better for it.
Of course, if you simply put the whinstones into a kettle and
boiled them, you would not get much out of them by such rough
cookery as that. But Madam How is the best and most delicate of
all cooks; and she knows how to pound, and soak, and stew
whinstones so delicately, that she can make them sauce and
seasoning for meat, vegetables, puddings, and almost everything
that you eat; and can put into your veins things which were
spouted up red-hot by volcanos, ages and ages since, perhaps at
the bottom of ancient seas which are now firm dry land.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: F'rinstance, we got to get samples of all the blessed wines there
are--and learn 'em up. Stern, Smoor, Burgundy, all of 'em! She
took Stern to-night--and when she tasted it first--you pulled a
face, Susan, you did. I saw you. It surprised you. You bunched
your nose. We got to get used to wine and not do that. We got
to get used to wearing evening dress--YOU, Susan, too."
"Always have had a tendency to stick out of my clothes," said my
aunt. "However--Who cares?" She shrugged her shoulders.
I had never seen my uncle so immensely serious.
"Got to get the hang of etiquette," he went on to the fire.
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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 Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: forced to pause until the strangely savage, monotonous noise of the
native drums had ceased; but no Samoan, nor, I trust, white person,
changed his reverent attitude. Once, I remember a look of
surprised dismay crossing the countenance of Tusitala when my son,
contrary to his usual custom of reading the next chapter following
that of yesterday, turned back the leaves of his Bible to find a
chapter fiercely denunciatory, and only too applicable to the
foreign dictators of distracted Samoa. On another occasion the
chief himself brought the service to a sudden check. He had just
learned of the treacherous conduct of one in whom he had every
reason to trust. That evening the prayer seemed unusually short
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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 Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: whole life evolved; there all fears dispersed; there the rays of hope
descended to the soul! At this moment, the sun, sympathizing with
these thoughts of love and of the future, had cast an ardent glow upon
the savage flanks of the rock; a few wild mountain flowers were
visible; the stillness and the silence magnified that rugged pile,--
really sombre, though tinted by the dreamer, and beautiful beneath its
scanty vegetation, the warm chamomile, the Venus' tresses with their
velvet leaves. Oh, lingering festival; oh, glorious decorations; oh,
happy exaltation of human forces! Once already the lake of Brienne had
spoken to me thus. The rock of Croisic may be perhaps the last of
these my joys. If so, what will become of Pauline?
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