| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: King Stephen by the great barons and lords of castles,
who were all Normans, affords a strong proof
of the excesses of which they were capable when
their passions were inflamed. ``They grievously
oppressed the poor people by building castles; and
when they were built, they filled them with wicked
men, or rather devils, who seized both men and
women who they imagined had any money, threw
them into prison, and put them to more cruel tortures
than the martyrs ever endured. They suffocated
some in mud, and suspended others by the
Ivanhoe |
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 Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Sad wind that shrieked, and answered with a shriek,
Reverberant through lonely corridors.
The old man heard it; and he heard, perforce,
Words out of lips that were no more to speak --
Words of the past that shook the old man's cheek
Like dead, remembered footsteps on old floors.
And then there were the leaves that plagued him so!
The brown, thin leaves that on the stones outside
Skipped with a freezing whisper. Now and then
They stopped, and stayed there -- just to let him know
How dead they were; but if the old man cried,
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