| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: TITUBA.
I do not need a horse!
I can ride through the air upon a stick,
Above the tree-tops and above the houses,
And no one see me, no one overtake me.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II. -- A room at JUSTICE HATHORNE'S. A clock in the
corner.
Enter HATHORNE and MATHER.
HATHORNE.
You are welcome, reverend sir, thrice welcome here
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: human scope. Like California's fish, he ran at me head on, and
leaped against the line, but the Lord gave me two hundred and
fifty pairs of fingers in that hour. The banks and the
pine-trees danced dizzily round me, but I only reeled--reeled as
for life--reeled for hours, and at the end of the reeling
continued to give him the butt while he sulked in a pool.
California was further up the reach, and with the corner of my
eye I could see him casting with long casts and much skill. Then
he struck, and my fish broke for the weir in the same instant,
and down the reach we came, California and I, reel answering reel
even as the morning stars sing together.
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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 Tanach: Jeremiah 25: 4 And the LORD hath sent unto you all His servants the prophets, sending them betimes and often--but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear--
Jeremiah 25: 5 saying: 'Return ye now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD hath given unto you and to your fathers, for ever and ever;
Jeremiah 25: 6 and go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke Me not with the work of your hands, and I will do you no hurt.'
Jeremiah 25: 7 Yet ye have not hearkened unto Me, saith the LORD; that ye might provoke Me with the work of your hands to your own hurt.
Jeremiah 25: 8 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts: Because ye have not heard My words,
Jeremiah 25: 9 behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and I will send unto Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.
Jeremiah 25: 10 Moreover I will cause to cease from among them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.
Jeremiah 25: 11 And this whole land shall be a desolation, and a waste; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
Jeremiah 25: 12 And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chald 
The Tanach |
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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: that love without calculation and wise men that calculate while they
love."
"To my thinking Bixiou is sublime," cried Blondet. "What does Finot
say to it?"
"Anywhere else," said Finot, drawing himself up in his cravat,
"anywhere else, I should say, with the 'gentlemen'; but here, I
think----"
"With the scoundrelly scapegraces with whom you have the honor to
associate?" said Bixiou.
"Upon my word, yes."
"And you?" asked Bixiou, turning to Couture.
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