| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: and a discolored face, and friends weeping, and
blacks, and obsequies, and the like, show death
terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there is no
passion in the mind of man, so weak, but it mates,
and masters, the fear of death; and therefore,
death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath
so many attendants about him, that can win the
combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love
slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear
preoccupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the em-
peror had slain himself, pity (which is the tender-
Essays of Francis Bacon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: morning. But he does not always come at that hour.
I waited a little, and then I groped my way to the door and
knocked on it with the hilt of my sword. The dogs began to bark
at the back, and the chorus of a drinking-song, which came
fitfully from the east wing, ceased altogether. An inner door
opened, and an angry voice, apparently an officer's, began to
rate someone for not coming. Another moment, and a clamour of
voices and footsteps seemed to pour into the hall, and fill it.
I heard the bar jerked away, the door was flung open, and in a
twinkling a lanthorn, behind which a dozen flushed visages were
dimly seen, was thrust into my face.
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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 The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: pick a six-leaved clover. You are accused of
having broken this Law, even after you had
been warned not to do so.
Ojo hung his head and while he hesitated how to
reply the Patchwork Girl stepped forward and spoke
for him.
"All this fuss is about nothing at all," she
said, facing Ozma unabashed. "You can't prove he
picked the six-leaved clover, so you've no right
to accuse him of it. Search him, if you like, but
you won't find the clover; look in his basket and
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
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 All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: PAROLLES.
A good knave, i' faith, and well fed.--
Madam, my lord will go away to-night:
A very serious business calls on him.
The great prerogative and right of love,
Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;
But puts it off to a compell'd restraint;
Whose want, and whose delay, is strew'd with sweets;
Which they distil now in the curbed time,
To make the coming hour o'erflow with joy
And pleasure drown the brim.
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