| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: The gravest citizen seems to lose his head,
The king is scared, the soldier will not fight,
The little boys begin to shoot and stab,
A kingdom topples over with a shriek
Like an old woman, and down rolls the world
In mock heroics stranger than our own;
Revolts, republics, revolutions, most
No graver than a schoolboys' barring out;
Too comic for the serious things they are,
Too solemn for the comic touches in them,
Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: pleasant digression. A second later it became clear
from the sound of voices that she had brought some one
back with her, and Theron hastily stretched himself out
again in the armchair, with his head back in the pillow,
and his feet on the other chair. He had come mighty
near forgetting that he was an invalid, and he protected
himself the further now by assuming an air of lassitude
verging upon prostration.
"Yes; there's a light burning. It's all right," he heard
Alice say. She entered the room, and Theron's head was too
bad to permit him to turn it, and see who her companion was.
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: man's bunk and removing every vestige of him. By sea law and sea
custom, we should have gathered his effects together and turned
them over to the captain, who, later, would have held an auction
in which we should have bid for the various articles. But no man
wanted them, so we tossed them up on deck and overboard in the
wake of the departed body--the last ill-treatment we could devise
to wreak upon the one we had hated so. Oh, it was raw, believe
me; but the life we lived was raw, and we were as raw as the life.
The Bricklayer's bunk was better than mine. Less sea water leaked
down through the deck into it, and the light was better for lying
in bed and reading. Partly for this reason I proceeded to move
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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 Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: namesake.
"He has more of his mother than of Boris," he would say. "So much
the better! Strong dark eyes, like the Great Peter,--and what a
goodly leg for a babe! Ha! he makes a tight little fist already,--
fit to handle a whip,--or" (seeing the expression of Helena's
face)--"or a sword. He'll be a proper Prince of Kinesma, my
daughter, and we owe it to you."
Helena smiled, and gave him a grateful glance in return. She had
had her secret fears as to the complete conversion of Prince
Alexis; but now she saw in this babe a new spell whereby he might
be bound. Slight as was her knowledge of men, she yet guessed the
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