| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross
You love my son; invention is asham'd,
Against the proclamation of thy passion,
To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
But tell me then, 'tis so;--for, look, thy cheeks
Confess it, one to the other; and thine eyes
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours,
That in their kind they speak it; only sin
And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: was so scanty as to afford but indifferent cover for anything
larger than one of the small grass antelopes. All the ravines led
down a mile or so to a deeper main watercourse paralleling the
mountains. Some water stood in the pools here; and the cover was
a little more dense, but consisted at best of but a "stringer" no
wider than a city street. Flanking the stringer were scattered
high bushes for a few yards; and then the open country.
Altogether as unlikely a place for the shade-loving buffalo as
could be imagined.
We collected our Newmanii after rather a long hunt; and just at
noon, when the heat of the day began to come on, we wandered down
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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 An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: and blown; the early hour; the parcels half-packed; and the singular
air of the excited old maid. But when Mariette made an invasion of the
market, and bought all the best things; when Jacquelin went to the
principal upholsterer in Alencon, two doors from the church, in search
of a bed,--there was matter for the gravest conjectures. These
extraordinary events were discussed on all sides; they occupied the
minds of every one, even Mademoiselle Armande herself, with whom was
Monsieur de Valois. Within two days the town of Alencon had been
agitated by such startling events that certain good women were heard
to remark that the world was coming to an end. This last news,
however, resolved itself into a single question, "What is happening at
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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 Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: herbs, which, if less beautiful, still bore tokens of assiduous
care, as if all had their individual virtues, known to the
scientific mind that fostered them. Some were placed in urns,
rich with old carving, and others in common garden pots; some
crept serpent-like along the ground or climbed on high, using
whatever means of ascent was offered them. One plant had wreathed
itself round a statue of Vertumnus, which was thus quite veiled
and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage, so happily arranged
that it might have served a sculptor for a study.
While Giovanni stood at the window he heard a rustling behind a
screen of leaves, and became aware that a person was at work in
Mosses From An Old Manse |
