| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: while at least, avoid the chance of a pursuit.'
'Archer,' quoth his lordship, 'this is a rank ingratishood.
What? I'm to go firing away in the dark in the cold
po'chaise, and not so much as a game of ecarte possible,
unless I stop and play with the postillion, the postillion;
and the whole country swarming with thieves and rascals and
highwaymen.'
'I beg your lordship's pardon,' put in the landlord, who now
appeared in the doorway to announce the chaise, 'but this
part of the North Road is known for safety. There has not
been a robbery, to call a robbery, this five years' time.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: he explained, 'I should have suspected some crooked manipulation and
advised selling at once. But this indicates a healthy absorption
preliminary to a natural rise. I should not dream of letting mother part
with hers.'"
"The basis of Standard Egg was not only a monopoly of all the hens in the
United States, but a machine called a Separator, for telling the age and
state of an egg by means of immersion in water. Perfectly good eggs sank
fast and passed out through one distributor; fairly nice eggs did not
reach the bottom, and were drawn off through another sluice, and so on.
This saved the wages of the egg twirlers, whose method of candling eggs,
as it was called, was far less rapid than the Separator. And when I
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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 Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: in other things too--partly in there being scarce a spot at
Weatherend without something to stay behind for. It was in the way
the autumn day looked into the high windows as it waned; the way
the red light, breaking at the close from under a low sombre sky,
reached out in a long shaft and played over old wainscots, old
tapestry, old gold, old colour. It was most of all perhaps in the
way she came to him as if, since she had been turned on to deal
with the simpler sort, he might, should he choose to keep the whole
thing down, just take her mild attention for a part of her general
business. As soon as he heard her voice, however, the gap was
filled up and the missing link supplied; the slight irony he
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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 Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: certain letters which I had received from Natal, and of some newspapers
that came with them--for on all such matters she was very curious--and
so forth.
Impossible, the clever critic will say--impossible that a savage could
act with such finish. Well, friend critic, that is just where you are
wrong. When you come to add it up there's very little difference in all
main and essential matters between the savage and yourself.
To begin with, by what exact right do we call people like the Zulus
savages? Setting aside the habit of polygamy, which, after all, is
common among very highly civilised peoples in the East, they have a
social system not unlike our own. They have, or had, their king, their
Child of Storm |
