| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King James Bible: come.
MAT 11:15 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
MAT 11:16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto
children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,
MAT 11:17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced;
we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
MAT 11:18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He
hath a devil.
MAT 11:19 The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold
a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.
But wisdom is justified of her children.
King James Bible |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: Darkness was his surveyor.
I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles,
commencing at my own door, without going by any house, without
crossing a road except where the fox and the mink do: first along
by the river, and then the brook, and then the meadow and the
woodside. There are square miles in my vicinity which have no
inhabitant. From many a hill I can see civilization and the
abodes of man afar. The farmers and their works are scarcely more
obvious than woodchucks and their burrows. Man and his affairs,
church and state and school, trade and commerce, and manufactures
and agriculture even politics, the most alarming of them all--I
Walking |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the very empire itself.
When I told him that Hooja had stolen her, he
stamped his foot in rage.
"It is always the Sly One!" he cried. "It was Hooja who
caused the first trouble between you and the Beautiful
One.
"It was Hooja who betrayed our trust, and all but
caused our recapture by the Sagoths that time we
escaped from Phutra.
"It was Hooja who tricked you and substituted a
Mahar for Dian when you started upon your return
Pellucidar |
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 Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: avoids the lance which passed him, inflicting only a slight hurt.
(Vv. 3425-3570.) When Cliges felt himself wounded, he charged
the youth, and struck him with such force that he drove his lance
quite through his heart, and stretched him dead. Then all the
Saxons in fear of him betook themselves to flight through the
woods. And Cliges, ignorant of the ambuscade, courageously but
imprudently leaving his companions behind, pursues them to the
place where the duke's troops were in force preparing to attack
the Greeks. Alone he goes in hot pursuit after the youths, who,
in despair over their lord whom they had lost, come running to
the duke and tell him weeping of his nephew's death. The duke
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