| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: And last year's toast,
I'm confoundedly in fear
You'll be serious and severe
About the boast.
Blame not that I sought such aid
To cure regret.
I was then so lowly laid
I used all the Gasconnade
That I could get.
Being snubbed is somewhat smart,
Believe, my sweet;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: To wake Northumberland, and warlike Seyward,
That by the helpe of these (with him aboue)
To ratifie the Worke) we may againe
Giue to our Tables meate, sleepe to our Nights:
Free from our Feasts, and Banquets bloody kniues;
Do faithfull Homage, and receiue free Honors,
All which we pine for now. And this report
Hath so exasperate their King, that hee
Prepares for some attempt of Warre
Len. Sent he to Macduffe?
Lord. He did: and with an absolute Sir, not I
Macbeth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: At this question Schinner colored, remembering the noise he had
made. Adelaide said no more, and spared him a falsehood by rising
at the sound of a carriage stopping at the door. She went into
her own room, and returned carrying a pair of tall gilt
candlesticks with partly burnt wax candles, which she quickly
lighted, and without waiting for the bell to ring, she opened the
door of the outer room, where she set the lamp down. The sound of
a kiss given and received found an echo in Hippolyte's heart. The
young man's impatience to see the man who treated Adelaide with
so much familiarity was not immediately gratified; the newcomers
had a conversation, which he thought very long, in an undertone,
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: demons. He had handled too many human bones to care much for those
of saints. He was probably, like his friends of Basle, Montpellier,
and Paris, somewhat of a heretic at heart, probably somewhat of a
pagan, while his lady, Anne van Hamme, was probably a strict
Catholic, as her father, being a councillor and master of the
exchequer at Brussels, was bound to be; and freethinking in the
husband, crossed by superstition in the wife, may have caused in
them that wretched vie e part, that want of any true communion of
soul, too common to this day in Catholic countries.
Be these things as they may--and the exact truth of them will now be
never known--Vesalius set out to Jerusalem in the spring of 1564.
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