| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Collection of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: Presently there was a little
scuffling, scratching noise in a
corner near the fireplace, where
there was a hole under the
skirting-board.
Tom Thumb put out his
head for a moment, and then
popped it in again.
Tom Thumb was a mouse.
A MINUTE afterwards
Hunca Munca, his wife,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: me a long audience, and asked me many questions. He was well
pleased with the design of sending a fleet into that sea, and, to
give a greater reputation to the enterprise, proposed making his son
commander-in-chief, but could by no means be brought to think of
fixing garrisons and building fortresses there; all he intended was
to plunder all they could, and lay the towns in ashes.
I left no art of persuasion untried to convince him that such a
resolution would injure the interests of Christianity, that to enter
the Red Sea only to ravage the coasts would so enrage the Turks that
they would certainly massacre all the Christian captives, and for
ever shut the passage into Abyssinia, and hinder all communication
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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 The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: done the best I could. This is the life destiny has marked out for me, and I
will live it as best I may; but in this moment, preacher as I am, I would give
all I have or hope to have, all the little good I may have done, all my life,
to be such a man as you. For I would avenge the woman I loved. To torture, to
kill Girty! I am only a poor, weak fellow who would be lost a mile from this
village, and if not, would fall before the youngest brave. But you with your
glorious strength, your incomparable woodcraft, you are the man to kill Girty.
Rid the frontier of this fiend. Kill him! Wetzel, kill him! I beseech you for
the sake of some sweet girl who even now may be on her way to this terrible
country, and who may fall into Girty's power--for her sake, Wetzel, kill him.
Trail him like a bloodhound, and when you find him remember my broken heart,
The Spirit of the Border |
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 Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Thrice as the living Cameron
Lay sleepless on his bed,
Out of the night and the other world
Came in to him the dead,
And cried to him for vengeance
On the man that laid him low;
And thrice the living Cameron
Told the dead Cameron, no.
"Thrice have you seen me, brother,
But now shall see me no more,
Till you meet your angry fathers
Ballads |
