| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: summoned all his companions. "Go," said he, "throughout the town
and trim a lock of hair from over the right ear of every man in
the whole place;" and so they did, from the king himself to the
beggar-man at the gates. As for the prime-minister, the Genie
himself trimmed two locks of hair from him, one from over each of
his ears, so that the next morning he looked as shorn as an old
sheep. In the morning all the town was in a hubbub, and everybody
was wondering how all the men came to have their hair clipped as
it was. But the princess had brought the lock of Jacob Stuck's
hair away with her wrapped up in a piece of paper, and there it
was.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: And the cape overhung like a chin a gulph of sunless air.
"Silence, heart! What is that? - that, that flickered and shone,
Into the sun for an instant, and in an instant gone?
Was it a warrior's plume, a warrior's girdle of hair?
Swung in the loop of a rope, is he making a bridge of the air?"
Once and again Rua saw, in the trenchant edge of the sky,
The giddy conjuring done. And then, in the blink of an eye,
A scream caught in with the breath, a whirling packet of limbs,
A lump that dived in the gulph, more swift than a dolphin swims;
And there was the lump at his feet, and eyes were alive in the lump.
Sick was the soul of Rua, ambushed close in a clump;
Ballads |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: however, continued the Corporal, drolling a little in his turn, I'll make
sure work of it, an' please your Honour;--so taking hold of the two covers
of the book, one in each hand, and letting the leaves fall down as he bent
the covers back, he gave the book a good sound shake.
There is something falling out, however, said Trim, an' please your
Honour;--but it is not a chariot, or any thing like one:--Prithee,
Corporal, said my father, smiling, what is it then?--I think, answered
Trim, stooping to take it up,--'tis more like a sermon,--for it begins with
a text of scripture, and the chapter and verse;--and then goes on, not as a
chariot, but like a sermon directly.
The company smiled.
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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 Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln: we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember,
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . .
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . .
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . .
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