| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: pity from them that turn not unto thee; this is impossible. For
thy pity is poured out upon all men, and thou savest them that
call upon thee, Lord Jesu Christ, because glory becometh thee for
ever and ever. Amen."
Such were the prayers and intercessions that he made unto God, by
the space of seven full days, never leaving the grave, and never
thinking of meat or drink, and taking no refreshment of sleep:
but he watered the ground with his tears, and continued praying
and moaning unceasingly. But, on the eighth day, he went back to
his palace and distributed amongst the poor all his wealth and
riches, so that not one person was left in want.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: and battered, torn from their sites and contracted by fear, mere
hints to us of what the populous reality below is like. Often,
standing on the shore at low tide, has one longed to walk on and in
under the waves, as the water-ousel does in the pools of the
mountain burn, and see it all but for a moment; and a solemn beauty
and meaning has invested the old Greek fable of Glaucus the
fisherman: how eating of the herb which gave his fish strength to
leap back into their native element, he was seized on the spot with
a strange longing to follow them under the waves, and became for
ever a companion of the fair semi-human forms with which the
Hellenic poets peopled their sunny bays and firths, feeding "silent
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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 Whirligigs by O. Henry: interest. She sat at ease, bestowing her skirts with the
little womanly touch, serene as if the begrimed pier were
a summer garden. Lorison poked the rotting boards
with his cane.
He began by telling her that he was in love with some
one to whom he durst not speak of it. "And why not?"
she asked, accepting swiftly his fatuous presentation of
a third person of straw. "My place in the world," he
answered, "is none to ask a woman to share. I am an
outcast from honest people; I am wrongly accused of
one crime, and am, I believe, guilty of another."
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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 Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: him how grateful she was for all his care of her. She thought of
the thousand little things that she might have done for him. She
longed to recall every impatient word to him. His gentle
reproachful eyes were always haunting her. "You must come back,
Toby!" she cried. "You must!"
It was only when body and mind had worn themselves out with
yearning, that a numbness at last crept over her, and out of this
grew a gradual consciousness of things about her and a returning
sense of her obligation to others. She tried to answer in her
old, smiling way and to keep her mind upon what they were saying,
instead of letting it wander away to the past.
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