| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: A man that walketh in the darkness as thou dost may escape for a time,
but in the end he will surely fall into the pit. Thou hast put thy head
in the angry lion's mouth, and yet thou hast escaped by a miracle.
Try it not again." So saying, he turned and left Robin and was gone.
For three days Robin abided in London in the Queen's household,
and at the end of that time the King's head Page, Edward Cunningham,
came, and taking Robin with him, departed northward upon his way
to Sherwood. Now and then they passed bands of the King's men
coming back again to London, but none of those bands stopped them,
and so, at last, they reached the sweet, leafy woodlands.
Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbourne
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Aye red with flashing sunlight, fervent aye
From fire; on either side to left and right
Are traced the utmost twain, stiff with blue ice,
And black with scowling storm-clouds, and betwixt
These and the midmost, other twain there lie,
By the Gods' grace to heart-sick mortals given,
And a path cleft between them, where might wheel
On sloping plane the system of the Signs.
And as toward Scythia and Rhipaean heights
The world mounts upward, likewise sinks it down
Toward Libya and the south, this pole of ours
Georgics |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: eating and sleeping with the Man-Pack?"
"If ye had come when I called, this had never been," said
Mowgli, running much faster.
"And now what is to be?" said Gray Brother. Mowgli was going to
answer when a girl in a white cloth came down some path that led
from the outskirts of the village. Gray Brother dropped out of
sight at once, and Mowgli backed noiselessly into a field of
high-springing crops. He could almost have touched her with
his hand when the warm, green stalks closed before his face
and he disappeared like a ghost. The girl screamed, for she
thought she had seen a spirit, and then she gave a deep sigh.
The Second Jungle Book |
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 Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: his life. It was like the sunlight shining in his eyes, and he
almost sneezed. Her cheeks were like milk and rose-leaves, and
her hair like fine threads of gold. She sat in a golden coach
with a golden crown upon her head, and Jacob Stuck stood looking
and looking until his heart melted within him like wax in the
oven. Then the princess was gone, and Jacob Stuck stood there
sighing and sighing.
"Oh, dear! Dear!" said he, "what shall I do? For, proud as she
is, I must see her again or else I will die of it."
All that day he sat sighing and thinking about the beautiful
princess, until the evening had come. Then he suddenly thought of
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