| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: thousand pounds,' he said, 'on that ship, and it's for me to say
just where she went down.' It didn't need much brains to tumble
to that. And he was the leader from the first to the last. He got
hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they were brothers, and
the brig was the Pride of Banya, and he it was bought the diving-dress--
a second-hand one with a compressed air apparatus instead of pumping.
He'd have done the diving too, if it hadn't made him sick going down.
And the salvage people were mucking about with a chart he'd cooked up,
as solemn as could be, at Starr Race, a hundred and twenty miles away.
"I can tell you we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink
and bright hopes all the time. It all seemed so neat and clean
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: gemlike brilliancy, as if diamonds and rubies sparkled upward
among the bubbles of the fountain. Ever and anon there gleamed
across the young man's mind a sense of wonder that he should be
walking side by side with the being who had so wrought upon his
imagination, whom he had idealized in such hues of terror, in
whom he had positively witnessed such manifestations of dreadful
attributes,--that he should be conversing with Beatrice like a
brother, and should find her so human and so maidenlike. But such
reflections were only momentary; the effect of her character was
too real not to make itself familiar at once.
In this free intercourse they had strayed through the garden, and
Mosses From An Old Manse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: the other day and worn by a man of my own period in the world's
history, hearing the same news from day to day, thinking the same
thoughts, praying, perhaps, in the same temple with myself?
However it was, I was assailed with dreary thoughts; my uncle's
words, 'the dead are down there,' echoed in my ears; and though I
determined to dive once more, it was with a strong repugnance that
I stepped forward to the margin of the rocks.
A great change passed at that moment over the appearance of the
bay. It was no more that clear, visible interior, like a house
roofed with glass, where the green, submarine sunshine slept so
stilly. A breeze, I suppose, had flawed the surface, and a sort of
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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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.
Here kennel'd in a brake she finds a hound, 9l3
And asks the weary caitiff for his master,
And there another licking of his wound,
Gainst venom'd sores the only sovereign plaster; 916
And here she meets another sadly scowling,
To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.
When he hath ceas'd his ill-resounding noise,
Another flap-mouth'd mourner, black and grim, 920
Against the welkin volleys out his voice;
Another and another answer him,
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