| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: We would spend it in some words vpon that Businesse,
If you would graunt the time
Banq. At your kind'st leysure
Macb. If you shall cleaue to my consent,
When 'tis, it shall make Honor for you
Banq. So I lose none,
In seeking to augment it, but still keepe
My Bosome franchis'd, and Allegeance cleare,
I shall be counsail'd
Macb. Good repose the while
Banq. Thankes Sir: the like to you.
Macbeth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: national debt, which, somehow or other, he proves to be a
great national bulwark and blessing. He passed the greater part
of his life in the purlieus of Little Britain, until of late
years,
when, having become rich, and grown into the dignity of a
Sunday cane, he begins to take his pleasure and see the world.
He has therefore made several excursions to Hampstead,
Highgate, and other neighboring towns, where he has passed
whole afternoons in looking back upon the metropolis through
a telescope, and endeavoring to descry the steeple of St.
Bartholomew's. Not a stage-coachman of Bull-and-Mouth
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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 Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: the other hand, and when he had finished washing, both were so
white that he went to bed and sent for a physician.
Alarm and Pride
"GOOD-MORNING, my friend," said Alarm to Pride; "how are you this
morning?"
"Very tired," replied Pride, seating himself on a stone by the
wayside and mopping his steaming brow. "The politicians are
wearing me out by pointing to their dirty records with ME, when
they could as well use a stick."
Alarm sighed sympathetically, and said:
"It is pretty much the same way here. Instead of using an opera-
Fantastic Fables |
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 Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: Chrystal had gane the same gate."
"Oh, he must have been the young spendthrift that sold the
property? Well, but you should you have such an ill-will against
him; remember necessity has no law. And then, goodwife, he was
not more culpable than Mr. Treddles, whom you are so sorry for."
"I wish I could think sae, sir, for his mother's sake. But Mr.
Treddles was in trade, and though he had no preceese right to do
so, yet there was some warrant for a man being expensive that
imagined he was making a mint of money. But this unhappy lad
devoured his patrimony, when he kenned that he was living like a
ratten in a Dunlap cheese, and diminishing his means at a' hands.
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