| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Or my affection put to the smallest teen,
Or any of my leisures ever charm'd:
Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harmed;
Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,
And reign'd, commanding in his monarchy.
'Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me,
Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood;
Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me
Of grief and blushes, aptly understood
In bloodless white and the encrimson'd mood;
Effects of terror and dear modesty,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: been trying to instil into me - that is all very right and proper,
I daresay, and if I were some twenty years older, I might fructify
by it: but people must enjoy themselves when they are young; and
if others won't let them - why, they must hate them for it!'
'The best way to enjoy yourself is to do what is right and hate
nobody. The end of Religion is not to teach us how to die, but how
to live; and the earlier you become wise and good, the more of
happiness you secure. And now, Lady Ashby, I have one more piece
of advice to offer you, which is, that you will not make an enemy
of your mother-in-law. Don't get into the way of holding her at
arms' length, and regarding her with jealous distrust. I never saw
Agnes Grey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
Yet if men mov'd him, was he such a storm
As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,
When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.
His rudeness so with his authoriz'd youth
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.
'Well could he ride, and often men would say
That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!
And controversy hence a question takes,
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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: extract the famous white honey of Narbonne. The native flowers and
shrubs, of a beauty and richness rather Eastern than European, have
made the "Flora Montpeliensis," and with it the names of Rondelet
and his disciples, famous among botanists; and the strange fish and
shells upon its shores afforded Rondelet materials for his immortal
work upon the "Animals of the Sea." The innumerable wild fowl of
the Benches du Rhone; the innumerable songsters and other birds of
passage, many of them unknown in these islands, and even in the
north of France itself, which haunt every copse of willow and aspen
along the brook-sides; the gaudy and curious insects which thrive
beneath that clear, fierce, and yet bracing sunlight; all these have
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