| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll: And fading eyes grow bright, and pulses quicken:
Incessant pop the corks, and busy knives
Dispense the tongue and chicken.
Flushed with new life, the crowd flows back again:
And all is tangled talk and mazy motion -
Much like a waving field of golden grain,
Or a tempestuous ocean.
And thus they give the time, that Nature meant
For peaceful sleep and meditative snores,
To ceaseless din and mindless merriment
And waste of shoes and floors.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: But what Harpiton thought a sad chance the little friar thought a merry one,
and went bounding like a fat buck towards the abbey of Rubygill.
An arrow, with a letter attached to it, was shot into the camp,
and carried to the prince. The contents were these:--
"Prince John,--I do not consider myself to have resisted lawful authority
in defending my castle against you, seeing that you are at present
in a state of active rebellion against your liege sovereign Richard:
and if my provisions had not failed me, I would have maintained it
till doomsday. As it is, I have so well disposed my combustibles
that it shall not serve you as a strong hold in your rebellion.
If you hunt in the chases of Nottinghamshire, you may catch other
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