| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: high mountain, and I want you to go to stay a month in my house on
the mountain, and I want you to carry this little sick girl with
you. And when you are there, Sister Helen Vincula, my bread-man
will bring you bread, and my milk-man will bring you milk, and my
market-man from the cove will bring you apples and eggs, and all the
rest of the good things that come up the mountain from the warm
caves.''
``For,'' the Only-Just-Lady said, ``I want this little sick girl to
grow well again, and I want her little arms and legs and fingers to
get round and pink again.''
Bessie Bell thought that that was a very pretty tale that the Lady
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: watchful and circumspect from the very commencement of your career,
and not to suffer your heart to be stolen from you by the first
foolish or unprincipled person that covets the possession of it. -
You know, my dear, you are only just eighteen; there is plenty of
time before you, and neither your uncle nor I are in any hurry to
get you off our hands, and I may venture to say, there will be no
lack of suitors; for you can boast a good family, a pretty
considerable fortune and expectations, and, I may as well tell you
likewise - for, if I don't, others will - that you have a fair
share of beauty besides - and I hope you may never have cause to
regret it!'
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: But though Robin Hood had beaten off his enemies in fair fight,
all this lay heavily upon his mind, so that he brooded over it
until a fever seized upon him. For three days it held him,
and though he strove to fight it off, he was forced to yield at last.
Thus it came that, on the morning of the fourth day, he called Little John
to him, and told him that he could not shake the fever from him,
and that he would go to his cousin, the prioress of the nunnery
near Kirklees, in Yorkshire, who was a skillful leech, and he would
have her open a vein in his arm and take a little blood from him,
for the bettering of his health. Then he bade Little John make ready
to go also, for he might perchance need aid in his journeying.
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
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 The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: men such as he; but it was a Pope who thrust Cellini into prison,
and kept him there till he sickened with rage, and created unreal
visions for himself, and saw the gilded sun enter his room, and
grew so enamoured of it that he sought to escape, and crept out
from tower to tower, and falling through dizzy air at dawn, maimed
himself, and was by a vine-dresser covered with vine leaves, and
carried in a cart to one who, loving beautiful things, had care of
him. There is danger in Popes. And as for the People, what of
them and their authority? Perhaps of them and their authority one
has spoken enough. Their authority is a thing blind, deaf,
hideous, grotesque, tragic, amusing, serious, and obscene. It is
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