| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: It was only in Peter's absence that they could speak of
mothers, the subject being forbidden by him as silly.
"All I remember about my mother," Nibs told them, "is that she
often said to my father, `Oh, how I wish I had a cheque-book of
my own!' I don't know what a cheque-book is, but I should just
love to give my mother one."
While they talked they heard a distant sound. You or I, not
being wild things of the woods, would have heard nothing, but
they heard it, and it was the grim song:
"Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
The flag o' skull and bones,
Peter Pan |
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 Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: arose during the four years' war that had already begun.
Since this is the story of Mr. Lincoln's life, and not of the
Civil War, we cannot attempt to follow the history of the long
contest as it unfolded itself day by day and month by month, or
even to stop to recount a list of the great battles that drenched
the land in blood. It was a mighty struggle, fought by men of the
same race and kindred, often by brother against brother. Each
fought for what he felt to be right; and their common inheritance
of courage and iron will, of endurance and splendid bravery and
stubborn pluck, made this battle of brothers the more bitter as
it was the more prolonged. It ranged over an immense extent of
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