| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Regard my breast, Lord, in Thy day,
And not my prayer.
My heart is evil in Thy sight:
My good thoughts flee:
O Lord, I cannot wish aright -
Wish Thou for me.
O bend my words and acts to Thee,
However ill,
That I, whate'er I say or be,
May serve Thee still.
O let my thoughts abide in Thee
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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 Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: had been made, it would not be possible to rectify it at the
present meeting. According to the bylaws, it must go over to the
next regular meeting for action. He would not offer a motion, as
none was required. He desired to apologize to the gentlemen in
the name of the house, and begged to assure him that as far as it
might lie in the power of the Sons of Liberty, his temporary
membership in the order would be made pleasant to him.
This speech was received with great applause, mixed with cries of:
"That's the talk! "He's a good fellow, anyway, if he _is_ a teetotaler!"
"Drink his health!" "Give him a rouser, and no heeltaps!"
Glasses were handed around, and everybody on the platform
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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 The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: perseverance. Beauty is solemn and severe, and cannot be attained in
that way; we must wait and watch its times and seasons, and clasp it
firmly ere it yields to us. Form is a Proteus less easily captured,
more skilful to double and escape, than the Proteus of fable; it is
only at the cost of struggle that we compel it to come forth in its
true aspects. You young men are content with the first glimpse you get
of it; or, at any rate, with the second or the third. This is not the
spirit of the great warriors of art,--invincible powers, not misled by
will-o'-the-wisps, but advancing always until they force Nature to lie
bare in her divine integrity. That was Raphael's method," said the old
man, lifting his velvet cap in homage to the sovereign of art; "his
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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 The White Moll by Frank L. Packard: apart from that the place was in blackness, and save that she knew,
of course, she was in the rear of Shluker's junk shop, she could
form no idea of her surroundings. But she could, at last, hear.
Voices, one of which she recognized as Danglar's, though she could
not distinguish the words, reached her from upstairs.
Slowly, with infinite care, she crossed to the stairs, and on hands
and knees now, lest she should make a sound, began to crawl upward.
And a little way up, panic fear seized upon her again, and her heart
stood still, and she turned a miserable face in the darkness back
toward the door below, and fought against the impulse to retreat
again.
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