| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: rice, and got into the manner of planting and raising my corn, and
my tame cattle; for now they had, as I may say, a hundred wolves
upon the island, which would devour everything they could come at,
yet could be hardly come at themselves.
When they saw what their circumstances were, the first thing they
concluded was, that they would, if possible, drive the savages up
to the farther part of the island, south-west, that if any more
came on shore they might not find one another; then, that they
would daily hunt and harass them, and kill as many of them as they
could come at, till they had reduced their number; and if they
could at last tame them, and bring them to anything, they would
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: stood upon the rise, and looked, and lo! yet far off, but running
towards them, was the whole impi of the Halakazi, and it was a great
impi.
"They have gathered their strength indeed," said Galazi. "For every
man of ours there are three of these Swazis!"
The soldiers saw also, and the courage of some of them sank low. Then
Umslopogaas spoke to them:--
"Yonder are the Swazi dogs, my children; they are many and we are few.
Yet, shall it be told at home that we, men of the Zulu blood, were
hunted by a pack of Swazi dogs? Shall our women and children sing THAT
song in our ears, O Soldiers of the Axe?"
Nada the Lily |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum: while this great beast lies asleep."
She walked around Quox two or three times,
trying to discover some tender place on his body
where a thump or a punch might he felt; but he lay
extended along the rocks with his chin flat upon
the ground and his legs drawn underneath his body,
and all that one could see was his thick sky-blue
skin--thicker than that of a rhinoceros--and his
silver scales.
Then, despairing at last of wakening the beast,
and worried over the fate of her friends,
Tik-Tok of Oz |
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 Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: open. Up at the head where the canyon boxed she flushed a flock of wild
turkeys. They ran like ostriches and flew like great brown chickens. In a
cavern Carley found the den of a bear, and in another place the bleached
bones of a steer.
She lingered here in the shaded depths with a feeling as if she were indeed
lost to the world. These big brown and seamy-barked pines with their
spreading gnarled arms and webs of green needles belonged to her, as also
the tiny brook, the blue bells smiling out of the ferns, the single stalk
of mescal on a rocky ledge.
Never had sun and earth, tree and rock, seemed a part of her being until
then. She would become a sun-worshiper and a lover of the earth. That
The Call of the Canyon |
