| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: informed by the crew whether there were any Arabian vessels at the
mouth of the strait; but the Moors, who all entertain dismal
apprehensions of the Franks, plied their oars and sail with the
utmost diligence, and as soon as they reached land, quitted their
boat, and scoured to the mountains. We saw them make signals from
thence, and imagining they would come to a parley, sent out our boat
with two sailors and an Abyssin, putting the ships off from the
shore, to set them free from any suspicion of danger in coming down.
All this was to no purpose, they could not be drawn from the
mountain, and our men had orders not to go on shore, so they were
obliged to return without information. Soon after we discovered the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: infinite perfection of God, I endeavored to demonstrate all those about
which there could be any room for doubt, and to prove that they are such,
that even if God had created more worlds, there could have been none in
which these laws were not observed. Thereafter, I showed how the greatest
part of the matter of this chaos must, in accordance with these laws,
dispose and arrange itself in such a way as to present the appearance of
heavens; how in the meantime some of its parts must compose an earth and
some planets and comets, and others a sun and fixed stars. And, making a
digression at this stage on the subject of light, I expounded at
considerable length what the nature of that light must be which is found
in the sun and the stars, and how thence in an instant of time it
Reason Discourse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Strange birds a-singing, or the trees
Swing in big robber woods, or bells
On many fairy citadels:
There passing through (a step or so -
Neither mamma nor nurse need know!)
From your nice nurseries you would pass,
Like Alice through the Looking-Glass
Or Gerda following Little Ray,
To wondrous countries far away.
Well, and just so this volume can
Transport each little maid or man
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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 Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: taught him never to falter at stiff going so long as his rider
put him at it.
It was while he was clambering out of the sheer sides of a wash
that Bannister made a discovery. The man he pursued was wounded.
Something in the manner of the fellow's riding had suggested this
to him, but a drop of blood splashed on a stone that happened to
meet his eye made the surmise a certainty.
He was gaining now--not fast, almost imperceptibly, but none the
less surely. He could see the man looking over his shoulder,
once, twice, and then again, with that hurried, fearful glance
that measures the approach of retribution. Barring accidents, the
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