| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: "In the very best of company," said the friar, "in the high
court of Nature, and in the midst of her own nobility.
Is it not so? This goodly grove is our palace:
the oak and the beech are its colonnade and its canopy:
the sun and the moon and the stars are its everlasting lamps:
the grass, and the daisy, and the primrose, and the violet,
are its many-coloured floor of green, white, yellow, and blue;
the may-flower, and the woodbine, and the eglantine, and the ivy,
are its decorations, its curtains, and its tapestry: the lark,
and the thrush, and the linnet, and the nightingale, are its
unhired minstrels and musicians. Robin Hood is king of the forest
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: softened by a husband's tenderness.--'Ought to be!' I exclaimed;
and I endeavoured to drive away the tenderness that suffocated me;
but my spirits were weak, and the unbidden tears would flow. 'Why
was I,' I would ask thee, but thou didst not heed me,--'cut off
from the participation of the sweetest pleasure of life?' I imagined
with what extacy, after the pains of child-bed, I should have
presented my little stranger, whom I had so long wished to view,
to a respectable father, and with what maternal fondness I should
have pressed them both to my heart!--Now I kissed her with less
delight, though with the most endearing compassion, poor helpless
one! when I perceived a slight resemblance of him, to whom she owed
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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 Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: past familiarity with his surroundings. He blundered
on through the darkness as though he were traversing an
open plain under the brilliance of a noonday sun, and
suddenly there happened that which had to happen under
the circumstances of his rash advance.
He reached the brink of the well, stepped outward into
space, lunged forward, and shot downward into the inky
depths below. Still clutching his spear, he struck the
water, and sank beneath its surface, plumbing the
depths.
The fall had not injured him, and when he rose to the
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar |
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 Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: there ain't any titles. Do you know what a prince of the blood is,
on earth?"
"No."
"Well, a prince of the blood don't belong to the royal family
exactly, and he don't belong to the mere nobility of the kingdom;
he is lower than the one, and higher than t'other. That's about
the position of the patriarchs and prophets here. There's some
mighty high nobility here - people that you and I ain't worthy to
polish sandals for - and THEY ain't worthy to polish sandals for
the patriarchs and prophets. That gives you a kind of an idea of
their rank, don't it? You begin to see how high up they are, don't
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