| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: He knew his Trade, and call'd it **Boots.
The Horned Moon, which heretofore
Upon their Shoes the Romans wore,
Whose Wideness kept their Toes from Corns,
And whence we claim our Shooing-Horns;
Shows how the Art of Cobling bears
A near Resemblance to the Spheres.
A Scrap of Parchment hung by Geometry
(A great Refinement in Barometry)
Can, like the Stars, foretel the Weather;
And what is Parchment else but Leather?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: which I did not comprehend. Presently I found, by the frequent
recurrence of some sound which the stranger repeated after them,
that she was endeavouring to learn their language; and the idea
instantly occurred to me that I should make use of the same
instructions to the same end. The stranger learned about twenty
words at the first lesson; most of them, indeed, were those which
I had before understood, but I profited by the others.
"As night came on, Agatha and the Arabian retired early. When they
separated Felix kissed the hand of the stranger and said, `Good
night sweet Safie.' He sat up much longer, conversing with his
father, and by the frequent repetition of her name I conjectured
Frankenstein |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: on long appreciating where Nature is insatiable, imperious,
maddening, in her demands on our admiration. The very power of
observing wears out under the rush of ever new objects; and the
dizzy spectator is fain at last to shut the eyes of his soul, and
take refuge (as West Indian Spaniards do) in tobacco and stupidity.
The man, too, who has not only eyes but utterance,--what shall he
do where all words fail him? Superlatives are but inarticulate,
after all, and give no pictures even of size any more than do
numbers of feet and yards: and yet what else can we do, but heap
superlative on superlative, and cry, "Wonderful, wonderful!" and
after that, "wonderful, past all whooping"? What Humboldt's self
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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 The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: We seven stayed at Christmas up to read;
And there we took one tutor as to read:
The hard-grained Muses of the cube and square
Were out of season: never man, I think,
So mouldered in a sinecure as he:
For while our cloisters echoed frosty feet,
And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms,
We did but talk you over, pledge you all
In wassail; often, like as many girls--
Sick for the hollies and the yews of home--
As many little trifling Lilias--played
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