| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: within eighteen English miles of the seaside. Glumdalclitch and
I were much fatigued: I had gotten a small cold, but the poor
girl was so ill as to be confined to her chamber. I longed to
see the ocean, which must be the only scene of my escape, if ever
it should happen. I pretended to be worse than I really was, and
desired leave to take the fresh air of the sea, with a page, whom
I was very fond of, and who had sometimes been trusted with me.
I shall never forget with what unwillingness Glumdalclitch
consented, nor the strict charge she gave the page to be careful
of me, bursting at the same time into a flood of tears, as if she
had some forboding of what was to happen. The boy took me out in
Gulliver's Travels |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: gowned bosom. For her were the gray things, the neutral tinted
skies, the ugly garb, the coarse meats; for them the rainbow, the
ethereal airiness of earthly joys, the bonbons and glaces of the
world. Sister Josepha did not know that the rainbow is elusive,
and its colours but the illumination of tears; she had never been
told that earthly ethereality is necessarily ephemeral, nor that
bonbons and glaces, whether of the palate or of the soul,
nauseate and pall upon the taste. Dear God, forgive her, for she
bent with contrite tears over her worn rosary, and glanced no
more at the worldly glitter of femininity.
The sunbeams streamed through the high windows in purple and
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: of the dead sea-bottoms and deserted cities of dying Mars.
Carthoris waited to see no more. Reaching for the
control board, he sent his craft racing plummet-like
toward the ground.
The green man was hurrying his captive toward a
huge thoat that browsed upon the ochre vegetation of
the once scarlet-gorgeous plaza. At the same instant a
dozen red warriors leaped from the entrance of a nearby
ersite palace, pursuing the abductor with naked swords
and shouts of rageful warning.
Once the woman turned her face upward toward the falling flier,
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
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 Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: sheep. This causes me to shudder and fear that at some time He
may send a council of angels upon Germany utterly destroying
us, like Sodom and Gomorrah, because we so wantonly mock Him
with the Council.
Besides such necessary ecclesiastical affairs, there would be
also in the political estate innumerable matters of great
importance to improve. There is the disagreement between the
princes and the states; usury and avarice have burst in like a
flood, and have become lawful [are defended with a show of
right]; wantonness, lewdness, extravagance in dress, gluttony,
gambling, idle display, with all kinds of bad habits and
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