| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Smooth it glides upon its travel,
Here a wimple, there a gleam--
O the clean gravel!
O the smooth stream!
Sailing blossoms, silver fishes,
Pave pools as clear as air--
How a child wishes
To live down there!
We can see our colored faces
Floating on the shaken pool
Down in cool places,
A Child's Garden of Verses |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: him one of their branches. What did the Man do but fix it into
the axe head, and soon set to work cutting down tree after tree.
Then the Trees saw how foolish they had been in giving their enemy
the means of destroying themselves.
The Dog and the Wolf
A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to
meet a House-dog who was passing by. "Ah, Cousin," said the Dog.
"I knew how it would be; your irregular life will soon be the ruin
of you. Why do you not work steadily as I do, and get your food
regularly given to you?"
"I would have no objection," said the Wolf, "if I could only
Aesop's Fables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: down on the floor now, before the bureau, and opened the
bottom drawer.
In a corner at the back, under the neat pile of garments,
was a tightly-rolled bundle of cloth. Fanny reached for it,
took it out, and held it in her hands a moment. Then she
unrolled it slowly, and the bundle revealed itself to be a
faded, stained, voluminous gingham apron, blue and white.
It was the kind of apron women don when they perform some
very special household ritual--baking, preserving, house
cleaning. It crossed over the shoulders with straps, and
its generous fullness ran all the way around the waist. It
Fanny Herself |
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 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: other, and then a-leaning down over the front of it,
with his arms and his body going all the time, and
shouting his words out with all his might; and every
now and then he would hold up his Bible and spread it
open, and kind of pass it around this way and that,
shouting, "It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness!
Look upon it and live!" And people would shout
out, "Glory! -- A-a-MEN!" And so he went on, and
the people groaning and crying and saying amen:
"Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black
with sin! (AMEN!) come, sick and sore! (AMEN!)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
