| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare: And I no friends to back my suit at all
But the plain devil and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!
Ha!
Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman-
Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,
Young, valiant, wise, and no doubt right royal-
The spacious world cannot again afford;
Richard III |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: "That's funny. Why did you name them all with the same name?"
"It was so hard to tell them apart," explained the hen. "Now, when
I call 'Dorothy,' they all come running to me in a bunch; it's much
easier, after all, than having a separate name for each."
"I'm just dying to see 'em, Billina," said Dorothy, eagerly. "But tell
me, my friends, how did you happen to be here, in the Country of the
Winkies, the first of all to meet us?"
"I'll tell you," answered Tik-tok, in his monotonous voice, all the
sounds of his words being on one level--"Prin-cess Oz-ma saw you in
her mag-ic pic-ture, and knew you were com-ing here; so she sent
Bil-lin-a and me to wel-come you as she could not come her-self; so
The Road to Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Enchanted Island of Yew by L. Frank Baum: nor telephones, nor mechanical inventions of any sort to keep people
keyed up to a high pitch of excitement. Men and women lived simply and
quietly. They were Nature's children, and breathed fresh air into
their lungs instead of smoke and coal gas; and tramped through green
meadows and deep forests instead of riding in street cars; and went to
bed when it grew dark and rose with the sun--which is vastly different
from the present custom. Having no books to read they told their
adventures to one another and to their little ones; and the stories
were handed down from generation to generation and reverently believed.
Those who peopled the world in the old days, having nothing but their
hands to depend on, were to a certain extent helpless, and so the
The Enchanted Island of Yew |
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 Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: is proper to monks to speak little. The note might have been
spared; to a man the hospitallers were all brimming with innocent
talk, and, in my experience of the monastery, it was easier to
begin than to break off a conversation. With the exception of
Father Michael, who was a man of the world, they showed themselves
full of kind and healthy interest in all sorts of subjects - in
politics, in voyages, in my sleeping-sack - and not without a
certain pleasure in the sound of their own voices.
As for those who are restricted to silence, I can only wonder how
they bear their solemn and cheerless isolation. And yet, apart
from any view of mortification, I can see a certain policy, not
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