| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: With doubtful glimmer lights the dreary forest.
_Ettrick Forest._
When Cedric the Saxon saw his son drop down
senseless in the lists at Ashby, his first impulse
was to order him into the custody and care of his
own attendants, but the words choked in his throat.
He could not bring himself to acknowledge, in presence
of such an assembly, the son whom he had
renounced and disinherited. He ordered, however,
Oswald to keep an eye upon him; and directed
that officer, with two of his serfs, to convey Ivanhoe
Ivanhoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: Poor little baby bear! he had always been laughed at by his older
brothers. He could not help being himself. He could not change
the differences between himself and his brothers. Thus again,
though the rest laughed aloud at the badger's fall, he did not see
the joke. His face was long and earnest. In his heart he was sad
to see the badgers crying and starving. In his breast spread a
burning desire to share his food with them.
"I shall not ask my father for meat to give away. He would
say 'No!' Then my brothers would laugh at me," said the ugly baby
bear to himself.
In an instant, as if his good intention had passed from him,
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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 Walden by Henry David Thoreau: But he, poor man, disturbed only a couple of fins while I was
catching a fair string, and he said it was his luck; but when we
changed seats in the boat luck changed seats too. Poor John Field!
-- I trust he does not read this, unless he will improve by it --
thinking to live by some derivative old-country mode in this
primitive new country -- to catch perch with shiners. It is good
bait sometimes, I allow. With his horizon all his own, yet he a
poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor
life, his Adam's grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this
world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed bog-trotting
feet get talaria to their heels.
Walden |
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 Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: besought him in Christ's name. When Father Sergius assured her
that only God could heal the sick, she replied that she only
wanted him to lay his hands on the boy and pray for him. Father
Sergius refused and returned to his cell. But next day (it was
in autumn and the nights were already cold) on going out for
water he saw the same mother with her son, a pale boy of
fourteen, and was met by the same petition.
He remembered the parable of the unjust judge, and though he had
previously felt sure that he ought to refuse, he now began to
hesitate and, having hesitated, took to prayer and prayed until a
decision formed itself in his soul. This decision was, that he
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