| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: his strong desire that he ascended from earth to cloud, and from
cloud to celestial atmosphere, to win the beautiful. This case of
ebony the artist opened, and bade Annie place her fingers on its
edge. She did so, but almost screamed as a butterfly fluttered
forth, and, alighting on her finger's tip, sat waving the ample
magnificence of its purple and gold-speckled wings, as if in
prelude to a flight. It is impossible to express by words the
glory, the splendor, the delicate gorgeousness which were
softened into the beauty of this object. Nature's ideal butterfly
was here realized in all its perfection; not in the pattern of
such faded insects as flit among earthly flowers, but of those
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: Portuguese, under the command of Don Christopher de Gama, his
brother. He was soon joined by some Abyssins, who had not yet
forgot their allegiance to their sovereign; and in his march up the
country was met by the Empress Helena, who received him as her
deliverer. At first nothing was able to stand before the valour of
the Portuguese, the Moors were driven from one mountain to another,
and were dislodged even from those places, which it seemed almost
impossible to approach, even unmolested by the opposition of an
enemy.
These successes seemed to promise a more happy event than that which
followed them. It was now winter, a season in which, as the reader
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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 Phaedrus by Plato: neck; he is flat-faced and of a dark colour, with grey eyes and blood-red
complexion (Or with grey and blood-shot eyes.); the mate of insolence and
pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur. Now when the
charioteer beholds the vision of love, and has his whole soul warmed
through sense, and is full of the prickings and ticklings of desire, the
obedient steed, then as always under the government of shame, refrains from
leaping on the beloved; but the other, heedless of the pricks and of the
blows of the whip, plunges and runs away, giving all manner of trouble to
his companion and the charioteer, whom he forces to approach the beloved
and to remember the joys of love. They at first indignantly oppose him and
will not be urged on to do terrible and unlawful deeds; but at last, when
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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 Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: voice he exclaimed, "You who hide your faces, perhaps because you
are not good subjects, pay attention and listen to what I am about
to say to you." The first to halt were those who were carrying the
image, and one of the four ecclesiastics who were chanting the Litany,
struck by the strange figure of Don Quixote, the leanness of
Rocinante, and the other ludicrous peculiarities he observed, said
in reply to him, "Brother, if you have anything to say to us say it
quickly, for these brethren are whipping themselves, and we cannot
stop, nor is it reasonable we should stop to hear anything, unless
indeed it is short enough to be said in two words."
"I will say it in one," replied Don Quixote, "and it is this; that
Don Quixote |
