| 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: against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that
ye cannot do the things that ye would.
GAL 5:18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
GAL 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these;
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
GAL 5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies,
GAL 5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of
the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that
they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
GAL 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
King James Bible |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: people had now withdrawn from around him, so that the youth
stood in an open space, near the smoking altar, front to front
with the angry King Pelias.
"Who are you?" cried the king, with a terrible frown. "And how
dare you make this disturbance, while I am sacrificing a black
bull to my father Neptune?"
"It is no fault of mine," answered Jason. "Your majesty must
blame the rudeness of your subjects, who have raised all this
tumult because one of my feet happens to be bare."
When Jason said this, the king gave a quick startled glance
down at his feet.
Tanglewood Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: He had been so interested in holding the mysterious phial to the
lamp, as a drinker holds up the wine-bottle at the end of a meal,
that he had not seen his father's eyes fade. The cowering poodle
looked from his master to the elixir, just as Don Juan himself
glanced again and again from his father to the flask. The
lamplight flickered. There was a deep silence; the viol was mute.
Juan Belvidero thought that he saw his father stir, and trembled.
The changeless gaze of those accusing eyes frightened him; he
closed them hastily, as he would have closed a loose shutter
swayed by the wind of an autumn night. He stood there motionless,
lost in a world of thought.
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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 Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: consistence with the column, which, from their appearance as they
lay scattered on the waste, were popularly called the Grey Geese
of Mucklestane-Moor. The legend accounted for this name and
appearance by the catastrophe of a noted and most formidable
witch who frequented these hills in former days, causing the ewes
to KEB, and the kine to cast their calves, and performing all the
feats of mischief ascribed to these evil beings. On this moor
she used to hold her revels with her sister hags; and rings were
still pointed out on which no grass nor heath ever grew, the turf
being, as it were, calcined by the scorching hoofs of their
diabolical partners.
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