| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies when first it gins to bud;
A brittle glass that's broken presently:
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.
And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,
So beauty blemish'd once's for ever lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.
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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: for your sake, your daughter's husband to the earldom of Huntingdon:
should that never be, should it be the will of fate that we must live
and die in the greenwood, I will live and die MAID MARIAN."[4]
[4] And therefore is she called Maid Marian
Because she leads a spotless maiden life
And shall till Robin's outlaw life have end.
Old Play.
"A pretty resolution," said the baron, "if Robin will let you keep it."
"I have sworn it," said Robin. "Should I expose her tenderness
to the perils of maternity, when life and death may hang on shifting
at a moment's notice from Sherwood to Barnsdale, and from Barnsdale
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended
address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat
in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper.
Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations
have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great
contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies
of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress
of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known
to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory
and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction
in regard to it is ventured.
Second Inaugural Address |
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 Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: only had the men of feudal times very extraordinary opinions in
matters of honor, but each of those opinions was present to their
minds under a clear and precise form.
This can never be the case in America, where all men are in
constant motion; and where society, transformed daily by its own
operations, changes its opinions together with its wants. In
such a country men have glimpses of the rules of honor, but they
have seldom time to fix attention upon them.
But even if society were motionless, it would still be
difficult to determine the meaning which ought to be attached to
the word "honor." In the Middle Ages, as each class had its own
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