| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: a moment, and then settled down again by Tom quite fearless.
"No!" it said, "you cannot catch me. I am a dragon-fly now, the
king of all the flies; and I shall dance in the sunshine, and hawk
over the river, and catch gnats, and have a beautiful wife like
myself. I know what I shall do. Hurrah!" And he flew away into
the air, and began catching gnats.
"Oh! come back, come back," cried Tom, "you beautiful creature. I
have no one to play with, and I am so lonely here. If you will but
come back I will never try to catch you."
"I don't care whether you do or not," said the dragon-fly; "for you
can't. But when I have had my dinner, and looked a little about
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: "Reaction," which, neither more nor less than in Prussia, is directed
against the press, the right of association and the like, and is
enforced by brutal police interventions on the part of the bureaucracy,
the police and the public prosecutor--just as in Prussia; the Mountain
on the contrary, is engaged with equal assiduity in parrying these
attacks, and thus in defending the "eternal rights of man"--as every
so-called people's party has more or less done for the last hundred and
fifty years. At a closer inspection, however, of the situation and of
the parties, this superficial appearance, which veils the Class
Struggle, together with the peculiar physiognomy of this period,
vanishes wholly.
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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 Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: The Knight.
The Lady.
Voices of men and women on the ground at the foot of the tower.
The voice of the Knight's Page.
The top of a high battlemented tower of a castle. A stone ledge,
which serves as a seat, extends part way around the parapet.
Small clouds float by in the blue sky, and occasionally a swallow passes.
Entrance R. from an unseen stairway which is supposed to extend around
the outside of the tower.
The Lady (unseen).
Oh do not climb so fast, for I am faint
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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 The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: effectually answer the same purpose. This being
effected, there remained only "the dread of the
world:" but Roxana soared too high, to think the
opinion of others worthy her notice; Laetitia seemed
to think of it only to declare, that "if all her hairs
were worlds," she should reckon them "well lost
for love;" and Pastorella fondly conceived, that she
could dwell for ever by the side of a bubbling fountain,
content with her swain and fleecy care; without
considering that stillness and solitude can afford
satisfaction only to innocence.
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