| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: was meant) when Antaeus gave a sudden snap of his jaws, as if
he were going to swallow fifty of them at once. You would have
laughed to see the children dodging in and out among his hair,
or swinging from his beard. It is impossible to tell half of
the funny tricks that they played with their huge comrade; but
I do not know that anything was more curious than when a party
of boys were seen running races on his forehead, to try which
of them could get first round the circle of his one great eye.
It was another favorite feat with them to march along the
bridge of his nose, and jump down upon his upper lip.
If the truth must be told, they were sometimes as troublesome
Tanglewood Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: betray them.' This gave me such a character of him, that I could
have no regard to anything he said or swore after that."
The agitation now besetting the public mind had been adroitly
fanned into flame by the evil genius of Lord Shaftesbury.
Eachard states that if he was not the original contriver of this
disturbance, "he was at least the grand refiner and improver of
all the materials. And so much he seemed to acknowledge to a
nobleman of his acquaintance, when he said, 'I will not say who
started the game, but I am sure I had the full hunting of it.'"
In the general consternation which spread over the land he beheld
a means that might help the fulfilment of his strong desires.
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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 The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: throughout by Rosalind and Orlando; compare, for example, the
first speech of all, Orlando's speech to Adam, with what
passage it shall please you to select - the Seven Ages from
the same play, or even such a stave of nobility as Othello's
farewell to war; and still you will be able to perceive, if
you have an ear for that class of music, a certain superior
degree of organisation in the prose; a compacter fitting of
the parts; a balance in the swing and the return as of a
throbbing pendulum. We must not, in things temporal, take
from those who have little, the little that they have; the
merits of prose are inferior, but they are not the same; it
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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 Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: where the racked and splintered debris was thickest,
where the ancient patches of snow lay against the very path,
where the winds blew bitterest and the general aspect was
mournfulest and dreariest, and furthest from any suggestion
of cheer or hope, I found a solitary wee forget-me-not
flourishing away, not a droop about it anywhere,
but holding its bright blue star up with the prettiest
and gallantest air in the world, the only happy spirit,
the only smiling thing, in all that grisly desert.
She seemed to say, "Cheer up!--as long as we are here,
let us make the best of it." I judged she had earned
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