| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: merchants for the trade. She'll be out in all shapes o' weathers.
Does that make any odds?"
'"Why, then," says I, "the first heavy sea she sticks her nose
into'll claw off half that scroll-work, and the next will finish it. If
she's meant for a pleasure-ship give me my draft again, and I'll
porture you a pretty, light piece of scroll-work, good cheap. If
she's meant for the open- sea, pitch the draft into the fire. She can
never carry that weight on her bows.
'He looks at me squintlings and plucks his under-lip.
'"Is this your honest, unswayed opinion?" he says.
'"Body o' me! Ask about!" I says. "Any seaman could tell you
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: schools held, but only the purgative process by which man was to ascend
into heaven, and which was necessary to arrive at that nature--that
nature itself being--what?
And how to answer that last question was the abysmal problem of the
whole of Neoplatonic philosophy, in searching for which it wearied
itself out, generation after generation, till tired equally of seeking
and of speaking, it fairly lay down and died. In proportion as it
refused to acknowledge a common divine nature with the degraded mass, it
deserted its first healthy instinct, which told it that the spiritual
world is identical with the moral world, with right, love, justice; it
tried to find new definitions for the spiritual; it conceived it to be
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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 Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: than ever. The sun gaed doun amang unco-lookin' clouds; it fell as
mirk as the pit; no a star, no a breath o' wund; ye couldnae see
your han' afore your face, and even the auld folk cuist the covers
frae their beds and lay pechin' for their breath. Wi' a' that he
had upon his mind, it was gey and unlikely Mr. Soulis wad get
muckle sleep. He lay an' he tummled; the gude, caller bed that he
got into brunt his very banes; whiles he slept, and whiles he
waukened; whiles he heard the time o' nicht, and whiles a tyke
yowlin' up the muir, as if somebody was deid; whiles he thocht he
heard bogles claverin' in his lug, an' whiles he saw spunkies in
the room. He behoved, he judged, to be sick; an' sick he was -
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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 The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Suddenly a voice cried sharply:
"Halt!"
At first, Dorothy could see nothing, although she looked around very
carefully. But Billina exclaimed:
"Well, I declare!"
"What is it?" asked the little girl: for Toto began barking at
something, and following his gaze she discovered what it was.
A row of spoons had surrounded the three, and these spoons stood
straight up on their handles and carried swords and muskets. Their
faces were outlined in the polished bowls and they looked very stern
and severe.
The Emerald City of Oz |
