| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: 'Pick yourself up and keep the wheel hard over!' he roared. 'You
wooden fool, you wanted to get killed, I guess. Draw the jib,' he
cried a moment later; and then to Huish, 'Give me the wheel
again, and see if you can coil that sheet.'
But Huish stood and looked at Davis with an evil countenance. 'Do
you know you struck me?' said he.
'Do you know I saved your life?' returned the other, not
deigning to look at him, his eyes travelling instead between the
compass and the sails. 'Where would you have been, if that
boom had swung out and you bundled in the clack? No, SIR,
we'll have no more of you at the mainsheet. Seaport towns are
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other
possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of
the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir,
she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other.
They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British
ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them?
Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years.
Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the
subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.
Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we
find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir,
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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 Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: this one; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous
creature he had ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all
the ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful
men, in the world, with all the old German bogy-painters into the
bargain, could never invent, if all their wits were boiled into
one, anything so curious, and so ridiculous, as a lobster.
He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted in
watching him hold on to the seaweed with his knobbed claw, while he
cut up salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his
mouth, after smelling at them, like a monkey. And always the
little barnacles threw out their casting-nets and swept the water,
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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 Rig Veda: 8 Send forth to him the meath-rich wave, O Rivers, which is
your
offspring and a well of sweetness,
Oil-balmed, to be implored at sacrifices. Ye wealthy Waters,
hear mine
invocation.
9 Send forth the rapture-giving wave, O Rivers, which Indra
drinks,
which sets the Twain in motion;
The well that springeth from the clouds, desirous, that wandereth
triple-formed, distilling transport.
The Rig Veda |
