| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King James Bible: respect unto him that fashioned it long ago.
ISA 22:12 And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping,
and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:
ISA 22:13 And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep,
eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we
shall die.
ISA 22:14 And it was revealed in mine ears by the LORD of hosts, Surely
this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord
GOD of hosts.
ISA 22:15 Thus saith the Lord GOD of hosts, Go, get thee unto this
treasurer, even unto Shebna, which is over the house, and say,
King James Bible |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: dwarf with a gigantic head, from which hung long, white hair, plaited
into locks. It was Zikali, no other!
Quite unattended, and naked save for his moocha, for he had on him none
of the ordinary paraphernalia of the witch-doctor, he waddled forward
with a curious toad-like gait till he had passed through the Councillors
and stood in the open space of the ring. Halting there, he looked about
him slowly with his deep-set eyes, turning as he looked, till at length
his glance fell upon the King.
"What would you have of me, Son of Senzangakona?" he asked. "Many years
have passed since last we met. Why do you drag me from my hut, I who
have visited the kraal of the King of the Zulus but twice since the
Child of Storm |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: repeated, in a voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned, but in
a moment returned.
"Are you well?" she asked. Well might she put the question: his
face was blanched as her gown.
"Quite well," he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She
went one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she
tripped fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across,
never turned at all.
This spectacle of another's suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts
from exclusive meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had designated
her brother "inexorable as death." She had not exaggerated.
Jane Eyre |
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 Poems by Oscar Wilde: In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watchers watched him as he slept,
And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
With a hangman close at hand.
But there is no sleep when men must weep
Who never yet have wept:
So we - the fool, the fraud, the knave -
That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
Another's terror crept.
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