| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: And he loosened the cloth from his loins, and swaddled the child in the stuff;
And about the strength of his neck he knotted the burden well.
There where the roof had fallen, it roared like the mouth of hell.
Thither Rahero went, stumbling on senseless folk,
And grappled a post of the house, and began to climb in the smoke:
The last alive of Vaiau; and the son borne by the sire.
The post glowed in the grain with ulcers of eating fire,
And the fire bit to the blood and mangled his hands and thighs;
And the fumes sang in his head like wine and stung in his eyes;
And still he climbed, and came to the top, the place of proof,
And thrust a hand through the flame, and clambered alive on the roof.
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: and presently forth from the covert burst four great, shaggy hounds.
"At 'em, Sweet Lips! At 'em, Bell Throat! At 'em, Beauty! At 'em, Fangs!"
cried the Friar, pointing at Robin.
And now it was well for that yeoman that a tree stood nigh
him beside the road, else had he had an ill chance of it.
Ere one could say "Gaffer Downthedale" the hounds were upon him,
and he had only time to drop his sword and leap lightly into the tree,
around which the hounds gathered, looking up at him as though he were
a cat on the eaves. But the Friar quickly called off his dogs.
"At 'em!" cried he, pointing down the road to where the yeomen
were standing stock still with wonder of what they saw.
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: be very much obliged to you." I cannot pretend that she put me at
my ease; but I had a certain respect for such a genuine dislike. A
poor nature would have slipped, in the course of these
familiarities, into a sort of worthless toleration for me.
We reached Chicago in the evening. I was turned out of the cars,
bundled into an omnibus, and driven off through the streets to the
station of a different railroad. Chicago seemed a great and gloomy
city. I remember having subscribed, let us say sixpence, towards
its restoration at the period of the fire; and now when I beheld
street after street of ponderous houses and crowds of comfortable
burghers, I thought it would be a graceful act for the corporation
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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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: if you will search those rocks somewhat closer, you will find even
more gorgeous species than him. See in that pool some dozen large
ones, in full bloom, and quite six inches across, some of them. If
their cousins whom we found just now were like Chrysanthemums,
these are like quilled Dahlias. Their arms are stouter and shorter
in proportion than those of the last species, but their colour is
equally brilliant. One is a brilliant blood-red; another a
delicate sea-blue striped with pink; but most have the disc and the
innumerable arms striped and ringed with various shades of grey and
brown. Shall we get them? By all means if we can. Touch one.
Where is he now? Gone? Vanished into air, or into stone? Not
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