| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: really splendid gift; one half, gratitude to me - one half, a
wipe at the King.
And now, to introduce darker colours, you must know this
visit of mine to the gaol was just a little bit risky; we had
several causes for anxiety; it MIGHT have been put up, to
connect with a Tamasese rising. Tusitala and his family
would be good hostages. On the other hand, there were the
Mulinuu people all about. We could see the anxiety of
Captain Wurmbrand, no less anxious to have us go, than he had
been to see us come; he was deadly white and plainly had a
bad headache, in the noisy scene. Presently, the noise grew
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: highest art of all, since it combines the greatest mass and
diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure. Such are epics,
and the few prose tales that have the epic weight. But as from a
school of works, aping the creative, incident and romance are
ruthlessly discarded, so may character and drama be omitted or
subordinated to romance. There is one book, for example, more
generally loved than Shakespeare, that captivates in childhood, and
still delights in age - I mean the ARABIAN NIGHTS - where you shall
look in vain for moral or for intellectual interest. No human face
or voice greets us among that wooden crowd of kings and genies,
sorcerers and beggarmen. Adventure, on the most naked terms,
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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 The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: her with a hundred questions, no one of which she could
understand or answer.
All that she could do was to point tearfully at the baby,
now wailing piteously in her arms, and repeat over and over,
"Fever--fever--fever."
The blacks did not understand her words, but they saw the
cause of her trouble, and soon a young woman had pulled
her into a hut and with several others was doing her poor
best to quiet the child and allay its agony.
The witch doctor came and built a little fire before the
infant, upon which he boiled some strange concoction in a
The Beasts of Tarzan |
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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: he began to rehearse his story for the thousandth time, he saw
again how incontrovertible it was, and felt sure that any
criminal lawyer would believe him.
"That's the trouble--Ascham's not a criminal lawyer. And then
he's a friend. What a fool I was to talk to a friend! Even if
he did believe me, he'd never let me see it--his instinct would
be to cover the whole thing up. . . But in that case--if he DID
believe me--he might think it a kindness to get me shut up in an
asylum. . ." Granice began to tremble again. "Good heaven! If
he should bring in an expert--one of those damned alienists!
Ascham and Pettilow can do anything--their word always goes. If
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