| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: overboard with it hugged up to his breast and shedding tears,
and we never see him again in this life, poor old suffering soul,
nor Charles William neither.'
'WHO was shedding tears?' says Bob; 'was it Allbright or the baby?'
'Why, Allbright, of course; didn't I tell you the baby was dead.
Been dead three years--how could it cry?'
'Well, never mind how it could cry--how could it KEEP all that time?'
says Davy. 'You answer me that.'
'I don't know how it done it,' says Ed. 'It done it though--
that's all I know about it.'
'Say--what did they do with the bar'l?' says the Child of Calamity.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: and freely granted out of a grateful heart -- but this,
oh, this! Would you drive away the blessed water
again?"
"No, Father, I will not drive it away. I have
mysterious knowledge which teaches me that there
was an error that other time when it was thought the
institution of the bath banished the fountain." A
large interest began to show up in the old man's face.
"My knowledge informs me that the bath was inno-
cent of that misfortune, which was caused by quite
another sort of sin."
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: Matilda had carried her point with the baron of ranging at liberty
whithersoever she would, under her positive promise to return home;
she was a sort of prisoner on parole: she had obtained this indulgence
by means of an obsolete habit of always telling the truth and keeping
her word, which our enlightened age has discarded with other barbarisms,
but which had the effect of giving her father so much confidence in her,
that he could not help considering her word a better security than
locks and bars.
The baron had been one of the last to hear of the rumours of
the new outlaws of Sherwood, as Matilda had taken all possible
precautions to keep those rumours from his knowledge, fearing that
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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 Hellenica by Xenophon: forced to engage inside the harbour, and lost thirty of his ships,
though the crews escaped to land. The remaining, forty in number, he
hauled up under the walls of the town. Callicratidas, on his side,
came to moorings in the harbour; and, having command of the exit,
blocked the Athenian within. His next step was to send for the
Methymnaeans in force by land, and to transport his army across from
Chios. Money also came to him from Cyrus.
Conon, finding himself besieged by land and sea, without means of
providing himself with corn from any quarter, the city crowded with
inhabitants, and aid from Athens, whither no news of the late events
could be conveyed, impossible, launched two of the fastest sailing
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