| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: But their wild exultation was suddenly checked
When the jailer informed them, with tears,
Such a sentence would have not the slightest effect,
As the pig had been dead for some years.
The Judge left the Court, looking deeply disgusted:
But the Snark, though a little aghast,
As the lawyer to whom the defense was entrusted,
Went bellowing on to the last.
Thus the Barrister dreamed, while the bellowing seemed
To grow every moment more clear:
Till he woke to the knell of a furious bell,
The Hunting of the Snark |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Houses, trees and hedges,
Clearer grow; and sparrow's wings
Beat on window ledges.
These shall wake the yawning maid;
She the door shall open--
Finding dew on garden glade
And the morning broken.
There my garden grows again
Green and rosy painted,
As at eve behind the pane
From my eyes it fainted.
A Child's Garden of Verses |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: keep it I will, sir, if you'll but help me."
"Have patience, man. God will take as good care of thy little maid
as ever thou wilt."
"I know it, sir. I know it: but faith's weak, sir! and oh! if she
were bred up a Papist and an idolater; wouldn't her blood be on my
head then, sir? Sooner than that, sooner than that, I'd be in the
Inquisition again to-morrow, I would!"
"My good fellow, there are no adventures to the Indies forward now:
but if you want to fight Spaniards, here is a gentleman will show
you the way. Amyas, take him with you to Ireland. If he has
learnt half the lessons God has set him to learn, he ought to stand
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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 A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: when I stood sentinel."
"And I daresay," said Lord Menteith, aside to Anderson, "the
weight of the halberd of the sergeant of the rounds often made
him open them."
Being apparently, however, in the humour of story-telling, the
young nobleman went on, addressing himself chiefly to his
servants, without minding the slumbering veteran.
"Every baron in the country," said he, "now swore revenge for
this dreadful crime. They took arms with the relations and
brother-in-law of the murdered person, and the Children of the
Mist were hunted down, I believe, with as little mercy as they
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