| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll: Gracefully she sat down sideways,
With a simper scarcely human,
Holding in her hand a bouquet
Rather larger than a cabbage.
All the while that she was sitting,
Still the lady chattered, chattered,
Like a monkey in the forest.
"Am I sitting still?" she asked him.
"Is my face enough in profile?
Shall I hold the bouquet higher?
Will it came into the picture?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower: Beknowe and in mi schrifte telle:
Bot I a drauhte have of that welle,
In which mi deth is and mi lif,
Mi joie is torned into strif,
That sobre schal I nevere worthe,
Bot as a drunke man forworthe; 280
So that in londe where I fare
The lust is lore of mi welfare,
As he that mai no bote finde.
Bot this me thenkth a wonder kinde,
As I am drunke of that I drinke,
Confessio Amantis |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: weight of the masses in a great crisis. And in our days those
means of action must be living forces, and not historical
memories.
In France, unluckily, the noblesse were still so puffed up with
the notion of their vanished power, that it was difficult to
contend against a kind of innate presumption in themselves.
Perhaps this is a national defect. The Frenchman is less given
than anyone else to undervalue himself; it comes natural to him
to go from his degree to the one above it; and while it is a rare
thing for him to pity the unfortunates over whose heads he rises,
he always groans in spirit to see so many fortunate people above
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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 Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: She blush'd a rosy red,
When Ringlet, O Ringlet,
She clipt you from her head,
And Ringlet, O Ringlet,
She gave you me, and said,
`Come, kiss it, love, and put it by
If this can change, why so can I.'
O fie, you golden nothing, fie
You golden lie.
3.
O Ringlet, O Ringlet,
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