| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: I dont want to be bad: I just dont want to be bothered about either
good or bad: I want to be an active verb.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. An active verb? Oh, I see. An active verb
signifies to be, to do, or to suffer.
HYPATIA. Just so: how clever of you! I want to be; I want to do;
and I'm game to suffer if it costs that. But stick here doing nothing
but being good and nice and ladylike I simply wont. Stay down here
with us for a week; and I'll shew you what it means: shew it to you
going on day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Shew me what?
HYPATIA. Girls withering into ladies. Ladies withering into old
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: through the dense undergrowth of young trees and
ferns. Rezanov, despite Baranhov's warning, had
tramped the forest many times. It was the one
thing that reconciled him to Sitka, for there are
few woods more beautiful. In spite or because of
the incessant rains, it is pervaded by a rich golden
gloom, the result of the constant rotting of the
brown and yellow bark, not only of the prostrate
trees, but of the many killed by crowding and un-
able to seek the earth with the natural instinct of
death. And above, the green of hemlock and spruce
Rezanov |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: the breach of which startles them. If there be anything in
evolution, this would seem inevitable; At all events, the
chicken-house was upset during the following several days. Em'ly
disturbed now the bantams and now the turkeys, and several of
these latter had died, though I will not go so far as to say that
this was the result of her misplaced attentions. Nevertheless, I
was seriously thinking of locking her up till the broods should
be a little older, when another event happened, and all was
suddenly at peace.
The Judge's setter came in one morning, wagging her tail. She had
had her puppies, and she now took us to where they were housed,
The Virginian |
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 Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: Yet I knew that he planned evil, and was half inclined to warn the
Captain Retief, but did not, fearing to make myself foolish. Ah! my
father, if I had spoken, how many would have lived who were soon dead!
But what does it matter? In any case most of them would have been dead
by now.
On the fourth morning, early, Dingaan sent a messenger to the Boers,
bidding them meet him in the cattle kraal, for there he would mark the
paper. So they came, stacking their guns at the gate of the kraal, for
it was death for any man, white or black, to come armed before the
presence of the king. Now, my father, the kraal Umgugundhlovu was
built in a great circle, after the fashion of royal kraals. First came
Nada the Lily |
