| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: cliff, their music, as usual on such occasions, striking lively
strains, as if sorrow, or even deep thought, should as short a
while as possible be the tenant of the soldier's bosom.
At the same time the small party, which we before mentioned, bore
the bier of the ill-fated Hamish to his humble grave, in a corner
of the churchyard of Dunbarton, usually assigned to criminals.
Here, among the dust of the guilty, lies a youth, whose name, had
he survived the ruin of the fatal events by which he was hurried
into crime, might have adorned the annals of the brave.
The minister of Glenorquhy left Dunbarton immediately after he
had witnessed the last scene of this melancholy catastrophe. His
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: used to pursue with stones and curses the embalmers as soon as they
had performed their unpleasant office; and though Herophilus and
Erasistratus are said to have dissected many subjects under the
protection of Ptolemy Soter in Alexandria itself: yet the public
feeling of the Greeks as well as of the Romans continued the same as
that of the ancient Egyptians; and Galen was fain--as Vesalius
proved--to supplement his ignorance of the human frame by describing
that of an ape. Dissection was equally forbidden among the
Mussulmans; and the great Arabic physicians could do no more than
comment on Galen. The same prejudice extended through the Middle
Age. Medical men were all clerks, CLERICI, and as such forbidden to
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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 Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: demonstrations; and finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts
(presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced
when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I
supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into
my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my
dreams. But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to
think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus
thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think,
therefore I am (COGITO ERGO SUM), was so certain and of such evidence that
no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the sceptics
capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept
Reason Discourse |
