| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare: FIRST MURDERER. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law
to us,
When thou hast broke it in such dear degree?
CLARENCE. Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?
For Edward, for my brother, for his sake.
He sends you not to murder me for this,
For in that sin he is as deep as I.
If God will be avenged for the deed,
O, know you yet He doth it publicly.
Take not the quarrel from His pow'rful arm;
He needs no indirect or lawless course
Richard III |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey: man's breast.
Chapter XXIX.
The fleeting human instinct of Wetzel had given way to the habit of years.
His merciless quest for many days had been to kill the frontier fiend. Now
that it had been accomplished, he turned his vengeance into its accustomed
channel, and once more became the ruthless Indian-slayer.
A fierce, tingling joy surged through him as he struck the Delaware's trail.
Wingenund had made little or no effort to conceal his tracks; he had gone
northwest, straight as a crow flies, toward the Indian encampment. He had a
start of sixty minutes, and it would require six hours of rapid traveling to
gain the Delaware town.
The Spirit of the Border |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: "He's so awfully devoted!"
"I will row you over to Chillon in the starlight."
"I don't believe it!" said Daisy.
"Well!" ejaculated the elder lady again.
"You haven't spoken to me for half an hour," her daughter went on.
"I have been having some very pleasant conversation with
your mother," said Winterbourne.
"Well, I want you to take me out in a boat!" Daisy repeated. They had
all stopped, and she had turned round and was looking at Winterbourne.
Her face wore a charming smile, her pretty eyes were gleaming,
she was swinging her great fan about. No; it's impossible to be prettier
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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 Heroes by Charles Kingsley: men, and the wandering Hyperboreai, who feed their flocks
beneath the pole-star, until they came into the northern
ocean, the dull dead Cronian Sea. (6) And there ARGO would
move on no longer; and each man clasped his elbow, and leaned
his head upon his hand, heart-broken with toil and hunger,
and gave himself up to death. But brave Ancaios the helmsman
cheered up their hearts once more, and bade them leap on
land, and haul the ship with ropes and rollers for many a
weary day, whether over land, or mud, or ice, I know not, for
the song is mixed and broken like a dream. And it says next,
how they came to the rich nation of the famous long-lived
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