| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: or----"
"Or I must." Douglas pieced out Strong's phrase for himself.
"That threat doesn't frighten me at all, deacon. After what you
have said, I should refuse to remain in this church"-- the deacon
stepped forward eagerly--"were it not that I realise more than
ever before how much you need me, how much you ignorant, narrow-
minded creatures need to be taught the meaning of true
Christianity." The deacon was plainly disappointed.
"Is it possible?" gasped Elverson, weakly.
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" asked Strong, when he
could trust himself to speak again.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: I landed. But land I did, and there was one Lesser Hoodoo broken.
Truly this was our day.
We measured him and started to prepare the trophy, when to us
came Mavrouki and a porter, quite out of breath, but able to tell
us that they had been scouting around and had seen two of the
lions. Then, instead of leaving one up a tree to watch, both had
come pell-mell to tell us all about it. We pointed this out to
them, and called their attention to the fact that the brush was
wide, that lions are not stationary objects, and that, unlike the
leopard, they can change their spots quite readily. However, we
remounted and went to take a look.
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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 Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: will be for good.
So far, you see, the doctrine is pretty coherent as a
doctrine; as a picture of man's life it is incomplete and
misleading, although eminently cheerful. This he is himself
the first to acknowledge; for if he is prophetic in anything,
it is in his noble disregard of consistency. "Do I
contradict myself?" he asks somewhere; and then pat comes the
answer, the best answer ever given in print, worthy of a
sage, or rather of a woman: "Very well, then, I contradict
myself!" with this addition, not so feminine and perhaps not
altogether so satisfactory: "I am large - I contain
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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 Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: After the sheep, she had an affection for dogs, and that is
the only period of her life that I remember her in.
There was nothing in the world she cared about but dogs.
She lived with them in horrible dirt and smells, and gave up her
whole mind and soul to them. We always had setters, harriers,
and borzois, and the whole kennel, often very numerous,
was under Agáfya Mikháilovna's management, with
some boy or other to help her, usually one as clumsy and stupid
as could be found.
There are many interesting recollections bound up with the
memory of this intelligent and original woman. Most of them are
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