| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: TIPSTAFF
Silence in the Court!
FIRST CITIZEN
Thou dost break silence in bidding us keep it, Master Tipstaff.
[Enter the LORD JUSTICE and the other Judges.]
SECOND CITIZEN
Who is he in scarlet? Is he the headsman?
THIRD CITIZEN
Nay, he is the Lord Justice.
[Enter GUIDO guarded.]
SECOND CITIZEN
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: and power of the slave-holders. I soon found that New York was not quite
so free or so safe a refuge as I had supposed, and a sense of loneliness
and insecurity again oppressed me most sadly. I chanced to meet on the street,
a few hours after my landing, a fugitive slave whom I had once known well
in slavery. The information received from him alarmed me. The fugitive
in question was known in Baltimore as "Allender's Jake," but in New York
he wore the more respectable name of "William Dixon." Jake, in law,
was the property of Doctor Allender, and Tolly Allender, the son
of the doctor, had once made an effort to recapture MR. DIXON,
but had failed for want of evidence to support his claim.
Jake told me the circumstances of this attempt, and how narrowly
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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 Odyssey by Homer: so I doubt not that I shall remember it in my dreams."
As she spoke, she told Eumaeus to set the bow and the pieces of
iron before the suitors, and Eumaeus wept as he took them to do
as she had bidden him. Hard by, the stockman wept also when he
saw his master's bow, but Antinous scolded them. "You country
louts," said he, "silly simpletons; why should you add to the
sorrows of your mistress by crying in this way? She has enough
to grieve her in the loss of her husband; sit still, therefore,
and eat your dinners in silence, or go outside if you want to
cry, and leave the bow behind you. We suitors shall have to
contend for it with might and main, for we shall find it no
The Odyssey |
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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: 'Wander,' a word for shadows like myself,
As take the pain, but cannot pluck the pelf.
XV.
Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east!
My heart doth charge the watch; the morning rise
Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest.
Not daring trust the office of mine eyes,
While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,
And wish her lays were tuned like the lark;
For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty,
And drives away dark dismal-dreaming night:
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