| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: other and the world the smallness of their bags. About the centre
of the room, the Cigarette and the Arethusa sat with their new
acquaintance; a trio very well pleased, for the travellers (after
their late experience) were greedy of consideration, and their
sportsman rejoiced in a pair of patient listeners. Suddenly the
glass door flew open with a crash; the Marechal-des-logis appeared
in the interval, gorgeously belted and befrogged, entered without
salutation, strode up the room with a clang of spurs and weapons,
and disappeared through a door at the far end. Close at his heels
followed the Arethusa's gendarme of the afternoon, imitating, with
a nice shade of difference, the imperial bearing of his chief;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: With other grown-ups now and then to get my favorite place.
The auto with its cushions fine and big and easy springs
Has altered in our daily lives innumerable things,
But hearts of men are still the same as what they used to be,
When surreys were the stylish rigs, or so they seem to me,
For every grown-up girl to-day and every grown-up boy
Still hungers for the seat in front and scrambles for its joy,
And riding by the driver's side still holds the charm it did
In those glad, youthful days gone by when I was just a kid.
I hurry, as I used to do, to claim that favorite place,
And when a tonneau seat is mine I wear a solemn face.
Just Folks |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: cliffs at Bournemouth?
Of course.
Then those are of the same age as the Bagshot sands, and lie on
the London clay, and slope down off the New Forest into the sea,
which eats them up, as you know, year by year and day by day. And
here were once perhaps cliffs just like them, where London Bridge
now stands.
* * *
There, we are rumbling away home at last, over the dear old
heather-moors. How far we have travelled--in our fancy at least--
since we began to talk about all these things, upon the foggy
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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 Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er
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