The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: willing, sir, to play ye any game that ye can name."
"Sir," says Cluny, "in this poor house of mine I would have you
to ken that any gentleman may follow his pleasure. If your
friend would like to stand on his head, he is welcome. And if
either he, or you, or any other man, is not preceesely satisfied,
I will be proud to step outside with him."
I had no will that these two friends should cut their throats for
my sake.
"Sir," said I, "I am very wearied, as Alan says; and what's more,
as you are a man that likely has sons of your own, I may tell you
it was a promise to my father."
Kidnapped |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: Why should they not pool their interests, and all go out in the
boat, or all walk in the garden, or all sit on the verandah? Then
there would be room for somebody else about the place.
In old times you could rely upon lovers for retirement. But
nowadays their role seems to be a bold ostentation of their
condition. They rely upon other people to do the timid, shrinking
part. Society, in America, is arranged principally for their
convenience; and whatever portion of the landscape strikes their
fancy, they preempt and occupy. All this goes upon the presumption
that romantic love is really the only important interest in life.
This train of thought was illuminated, the other night, by an
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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 Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: the blocks told mutely of vertiginous cycles of time and geologic
upheavals of cosmic savagery.
We had an aëroplane with us, and
my son Wingate would often go up to different heights and scan
the sand-and-rock waste for signs of dim, large-scale outlines
- either differences of level or trails of scattered blocks. His
results were virtually negative; for whenever he would one day
think he had glimpsed some significant trend, he would on his
next trip find the impression replaced by another equally insubstantial
- a result of the shifting, wind-blown sand.
One or two of these
Shadow out of Time |
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 Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: watch on deck in the sharp sea air put a man on his mettle
again; a battle must have been a capital relief; and prize-
money, bloodily earned and grossly squandered, opened the
doors of the prison for a twinkling. Somehow or other, at
least, this worst of possible lives could not overlie the
spirit and gaiety of our sailors; they did their duty as
though they had some interest in the fortune of that country
which so cruelly oppressed them, they served their guns
merrily when it came to fighting, and they had the readiest
ear for a bold, honourable sentiment, of any class of men the
world ever produced.
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