| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: to any purpose; - for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and
recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning
immediately to the grave-diggers' scene in the fifth act, I laid my
finger upon Yorick, and advancing the book to the Count, with my
finger all the way over the name, - ME VOICI! said I.
Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the
Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could
drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in
this account; - 'tis certain the French conceive better than they
combine; - I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this;
inasmuch as one of the first of our own Church, for whose candour
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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 Aeneid by Virgil: And, when the setting stars are lost in day,
To Juno's pow'r thy just devotion pay;
With sacrifice the wrathful queen appease:
Her pride at length shall fall, her fury cease.
When thou return'st victorious from the war,
Perform thy vows to me with grateful care.
The god am I, whose yellow water flows
Around these fields, and fattens as it goes:
Tiber my name; among the rolling floods
Renown'd on earth, esteem'd among the gods.
This is my certain seat. In times to come,
 Aeneid |