| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: Father Huddlestone informed the king of an honest gentleman, the
owner of a fair estate some six miles removed, who was generous
and exceedingly beloved, and the eldest justice of peace in the
county of Stafford. This gentleman was named Lane, "a very
zealous Protestant, yet he lived with so much civility and
candour towards the Catholics, that they would all trust him as
much as they would any of their own profession." The king,
however, not being willing to surprise this worthy man,
immediately despatched the Benedictine to make certain of his
welcome; receiving due assurances of which he and Lord Willmot
set out by night for Master Lane's mansion, where they were
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: shelf, and placing it upon the table, he added,
``your supper is here.''
The knight shrugged his shoulders, and leaving
the hut, brought in his horse, (which in the interim
he had fastened to a tree,) unsaddled him with
much attention, and spread upon the steed's weary
back his own mantle.
The hermit was apparently somewhat moved to
compassion by the anxiety as well as address which
the stranger displayed in tending his horse; for,
muttering something about provender left for the
Ivanhoe |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: intervening figures, came full in sight. Many turned away their
faces; others kept a fixed and rigid stare; and a young girl
giggled hysterically, and fainted with the laughter on her lips.
When the spectral procession approached the altar, each couple
separated, and slowly diverged, till, in the centre, appeared a
form, that had been worthily ushered in with all this gloomy
pomp, the death knell, and the funeral. It was the bridegroom in
his shroud!
No garb but that of the grave could have befitted such a
deathlike aspect; the eyes, indeed, had the wild gleam of a
sepulchral lamp; all else was fixed in the stern calmness which
Twice Told Tales |
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 Moby Dick by Herman Melville: it not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the otherwise
miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a man.
Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such a
ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp to
them. Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which I now and
then jerked the poor fellow from too close a vicinity to the maw of
what seemed a peculiarly ferocious shark--he was provided with still
another protection. Suspended over the side in one of the stages,
Tashtego and Daggoo continually flourished over his head a couple of
keen whale-spades, wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as they
could reach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was very
Moby Dick |
