| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: lash. Wait here, and receive your taskmasters, and abide your
chastisement at their hands; but do not think your mother's eyes
will behold it. I could not see it and live. My eyes have
looked often upon death, but never upon dishonour. Farewell,
Hamish! We never meet again."
She dashed from the hut like a lapwing, and perhaps for the
moment actually entertained the purpose which she expressed, of
parting with her son for ever. A fearful sight she would have
been that evening to any who might have met her wandering through
the wilderness like a restless spirit, and speaking to herself in
language which will endure no translation. She rambled for
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: on his side and open his jaws as wide as he could. Then the Crane
put its long neck down the Wolf's throat, and with its beak
loosened the bone, till at last it got it out.
"Will you kindly give me the reward you promised?" said the
Crane.
The Wolf grinned and showed his teeth and said: "Be content.
You have put your head inside a Wolf's mouth and taken it out
again in safety; that ought to be reward enough for you."
Gratitude and greed go not together.
The Man and the Serpent
A Countryman's son by accident trod upon a Serpent's tail,
Aesop's Fables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: how many ways has the mischievous demon of incon-
stancy of stealing into a woman's heart! Her love was
destroyed by the very means she took to support it.
CHARLOTTE
How?--Oh! I have it--some likely young beau
found the way to her study.
LETITIA
Be patient, Charlotte; your head so runs upon
beaux. Why, she read Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa
Harlow, Shenstone, and the Sentimental Journey; and
between whiles, as I said, Billy's letters. But, as her
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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 Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: He desires some drink and a moment's rest; then he will go; for
he is an unlucky person, and does not want to bring his ill-luck
on the woman who is succoring him. But she, it appears, is also
unhappy; and a strong sympathy springs up between them. When her
husband arrives, he observes not only this sympathy, but a
resemblance between them, a gleam of the snake in their eyes.
They sit down to table; and the stranger tells them his unlucky
story. He is the son of Wotan, who is known to him only as
Wolfing, of the race of the Volsungs. The earliest thing he
remembers is returning from a hunt with his father to find their
home destroyed, his mother murdered, and his twin-sister carried
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