| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: give us the grace to accept and to forgive offenders. Forgetful
ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others.
Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our
friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all
our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to
encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril,
constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of
fortune, and, down to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to
another. As the clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind,
as children of their sire, we beseech of Thee this help and mercy
for Christ's sake.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: as at this moment, when they thought themselves certain of
their fulfilment.
The reader cannot but have recognized in Jacob our old
friend, or rather enemy, Isaac Boxtel, and has guessed, no
doubt, that this worthy had followed from the Buytenhof to
Loewestein the object of his love and the object of his
hatred, -- the black tulip and Cornelius van Baerle.
What no one but a tulip-fancier, and an envious
tulip-fancier, could have discovered, -- the existence of
the bulbs and the endeavours of the prisoner, -- jealousy
had enabled Boxtel, if not to discover, at least to guess.
The Black Tulip |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: to ordained lines.
The other course, that of buying himself in, so to speak, seemed the only one
really open to men like him, the difficulty being simply of a material kind.
With the help of his information he began to reckon the extent of this
material obstacle, and ascertained, to his dismay, that, at the rate at which,
with the best of fortune, he would be able to save money, fifteen years must
elapse before he could be in a position to forward testimonials to the head
of a college and advance to a matriculation examination. The undertaking
was hopeless.
He saw what a curious and cunning glamour the neighbourhood of the place
had exercised over him. To get there and live there, to move among
Jude the Obscure |
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 Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: realize the truth of it.
Phaidor's slim hand shot out to close upon the black's dagger wrist.
Her right hand went high with its gleaming blade.
"That for Matai Shang!" she cried, and she buried her blade
deep in the dator's breast. "That for the wrong you would have done
Dejah Thoris!" and again the sharp steel sank into the bloody flesh.
"And that, and that, and that!" she shrieked, "for John Carter,
Prince of Helium," and with each word her sharp point pierced
The Warlord of Mars |
