| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: too. I said:
"If I might ask, I should very greatly like to know
what a certain person is doing."
"Speak, and freely. I will tell you."
"It will be difficult -- perhaps impossible."
"My art knoweth not that word. The more difficult
it is, the more certainly will I reveal it to you."
You see, I was working up the interest. It was
getting pretty high, too; you could see that by the
craning necks all around, and the half-suspended
breathing. So now I climaxed it:
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare: Well, well, my Lord, you second Gardiner's text.
Norfolk, farewell; thy turn will be the next.
[Exit Cromwell and the Lieutenant.]
GARDINER.
His guilty conscience makes him rave, my Lord.
NORFOLK.
Aye, let him talk; his time is short enough.
GARDINER.
My Lord of Bedford, come; you weep for him,
That would not shed half a tear for you.
BEDFORD.
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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 Juana by Honore de Balzac: leading to a ware-room where the light, carefully distributed,
permitted the examination of goods. Above this were the apartments of
the merchant and his wife. Rooms for an apprentice and a servant-woman
were in a garret under the roof, which projected over the street and
was supported by buttresses, giving a somewhat fantastic appearance to
the exterior of the building. These chambers were now taken by the
merchant and his wife who gave up their own rooms to the officer who
was billeted upon them,--probably because they wished to avoid all
quarrelling.
Montefiore gave himself out as a former Spanish subject, persecuted by
Napoleon, whom he was serving against his will; and these semi-lies
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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 Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: with whom the sun now stands at the point of noon, bless, help,
console, and prosper them.
Our guard is relieved, the service of the day is over, and the hour
come to rest. We resign into thy hands our sleeping bodies, our
cold hearths, and open doors. Give us to awake with smiles, give
us to labour smiling. As the sun returns in the east, so let our
patience be renewed with dawn; as the sun lightens the world, so
let our loving-kindness make bright this house of our habitation.
ANOTHER FOR EVENING
LORD, receive our supplications for this house, family, and
country. Protect the innocent, restrain the greedy and the
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