| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: another, and into the yet unbroken floe, as the heavy swell took
and shook and spouted between them. This battering-ram ice was,
so to speak, the first army that the sea was flinging against
the floe. The incessant crash and jar of these cakes almost
drowned the ripping sound of sheets of pack-ice driven bodily
under the floe as cards are hastily pushed under a tablecloth.
Where the water was shallow these sheets would be piled one atop
of the other till the bottommost touched mud fifty feet down,
and the discoloured sea banked behind the muddy ice till the
increasing pressure drove all forward again. In addition to the
floe and the pack-ice, the gale and the currents were bringing
The Second Jungle Book |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: half-murdered a fellow-creature in a scuffle on the moors, and to
having suffered a couple of quite innocent men to lie some time in
prison on a charge from which I could have immediately freed them.
All this I gave him first of all, to be done with the worst of it;
and all this he took with gravity, but without the least appearance
of surprise.
'Now, sir,' I continued, 'I expect to have to pay for my unhappy
frolic, but I would like very well if it could be managed without
my personal appearance or even the mention of my real name. I had
so much wisdom as to sail under false colours in this foolish jaunt
of mine; my family would be extremely concerned if they had wind of
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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 Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: I knew -- ~I~ knew what was coming, when we bid on the ~Byfleet~'s keel --
They piddled and piffled with iron: I'd given my orders for steel!
Steel and the first expansions. It paid, I tell you, it paid,
When we came with our nine-knot freighters and collared the long-run trade!
And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em the Scripture text,
"You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!"
They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.
Then came the armour-contracts, but that was M'Cullough's side;
He was always best in the Foundry, but better, perhaps, he died.
I went through his private papers; the notes was plainer than print;
Verses 1889-1896 |
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 Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: trick and deliver a land, justly considered half-savage by speculators
unable to get a bite of it, from the inroads of these Parisian
caterpillars.
At the head of an enchanting valley, called the Valley Coquette
because of its windings and the curves which return upon each other at
every step, and seem more and more lovely as we advance, whether we
ascend or descend them, there lived, in a little house surrounded by
vineyards, a half-insane man named Margaritis. He was of Italian
origin, married, but childless; and his wife took care of him with a
courage fully appreciated by the neighborhood. Madame Margaritis was
undoubtedly in real danger from a man who, among other fancies,
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