| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: of it, will take five strides, and be out of your kingdom at
the sixth. Good-bye. I shall pick my steps carefully, for fear
of treading upon some fifty of you, without knowing it. Ha, ha,
ha! Ho, ho, ho! For once, Hercules acknowledges himself
vanquished."
Some writers say, that Hercules gathered up the whole race of
Pygmies in his lion's skin, and carried them home to Greece,
for the children of King Eurystheus to play with. But this is a
mistake. He left them, one and all, within their own territory,
where, for aught I can tell, their descendants are alive to the
present day, building their little houses, cultivating their
Tanglewood Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: The crackling salt upon the flame, or hang
His studded crook against the temple wall
To Her who keeps away the ravenous fang
Of the base wolf from homestead and from stall;
And then the clear-voiced maidens 'gan to sing,
And to the altar each man brought some goodly offering,
A beechen cup brimming with milky foam,
A fair cloth wrought with cunning imagery
Of hounds in chase, a waxen honey-comb
Dripping with oozy gold which scarce the bee
Had ceased from building, a black skin of oil
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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 The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: forty years ago; and all the others of the company joined to sing the
burthen with her. The ditty was this; but first the burthen:
Bright shines the sun; play, Beggars, play;
Here's scraps enough to serve to-day.
What noise of viols is so sweet,
As when our merry clappers ring ?
What mirth doth want where Beggars meet ?
A Beggar's life is for a King.
Eat, drink, and play, sleep when we list
Go where we will, so stocks be mist.
Bright shines the sun; play, Beggars, play,
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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 A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the ancient traditions of the green men.
"She taught me rapidly the language and customs of my kind,
and one night she told me the story I have told to you up to
this point, impressing upon me the necessity for absolute
secrecy and the great caution I must exercise after she had
placed me with the other young Tharks to permit no one to
guess that I was further advanced in education than they,
nor by any sign to divulge in the presence of others my
affection for her, or my knowledge of my parentage; and
then drawing me close to her she whispered in my ear the
name of my father.
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