| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: from the luminous centre a handful of light, and scatters it broadcast
among the drowsy populations of the duller regions. This human
pyrotechnic is a scholar without learning, a juggler hoaxed by
himself, an unbelieving priest of mysteries and dogmas, which he
expounds all the better for his want of faith. Curious being! He has
seen everything, known everything, and is up in all the ways of the
world. Soaked in the vices of Paris, he affects to be the fellow-well-
met of the provinces. He is the link which connects the village with
the capital; though essentially he is neither Parisian nor provincial,
--he is a traveller. He sees nothing to the core: men and places he
knows by their names; as for things, he looks merely at their surface,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: islands and the bright sea, the sun and the moon and the forty
million stars, and life and love and hope. Henceforth is no more,
only to sit in the night and silence, and see your friends
devoured; for life is a deceit, and the bandage is taken from your
eyes."
Now when the singing was done, one of the daughters came with the
bowl. Desire of that kava rose in the missionary's bosom; he
lusted for it like a swimmer for the land, or a bridegroom for his
bride; and he reached out his hand, and took the bowl, and would
have drunk. And then he remembered, and put it back.
"Drink!" sang the daughter of Miru.
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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 Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the
number of Papists among us.
I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child
(in which list I reckon all cottagers, labourers, and four-fifths
of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags
included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten
shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have
said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he
hath only some particular friend, or his own family to dine with
him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow
popular among his tenants, the mother will have eight shillings
A Modest Proposal |
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 The Octopus by Frank Norris: grazing deliberately, working slowly toward the water-holes for
their evening drink, the horses keeping to themselves, the colts
nuzzling at their mothers' bellies, whisking their tails,
stamping their unshod feet. But once in a remoter field,
solitary, magnificent, enormous, the short hair curling tight
upon his forehead, his small red eyes twinkling, his vast neck
heavy with muscles, Presley came upon the monarch, the king, the
great Durham bull, maintaining his lonely state, unapproachable,
austere.
Presley found the one-time shepherd by a water-hole, in a far
distant corner of the range. He had made his simple camp for the
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