| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: can walk off to some portion of the earth's surface where a man
does not stand from one year's end to another, and there,
consequently, politics are not, for they are but as the
cigar-smoke of a man.
The village is the place to which the roads tend, a sort of
expansion of the highway, as a lake of a river. It is the body of
which roads are the arms and legs--a trivial or quadrivial place,
the thoroughfare and ordinary of travelers. The word is from the
Latin villa which together with via, a way, or more anciently ved
and vella, Varro derives from veho, to carry, because the villa
is the place to and from which things are carried. They who got
Walking |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: cut them off even at top. [Laughing without.] Ha! that's
Jenny's titter. I protest I despair of ever teaching
that girl to laugh; she has something so execrably
natural in her laugh, that I declare it absolutely dis-
composes my nerves. How came she into our house!
[Calls.] Jenny!
Enter JENNY.
JESSAMY
Prythee, Jenny, don't spoil your fine face with
laughing.
JENNY
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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 Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Macd. No Cosin, Ile to Fife
Rosse. Well, I will thither
Macd. Well may you see things wel done there: Adieu
Least our old Robes sit easier then our new
Rosse. Farewell, Father
Old M. Gods benyson go with you, and with those
That would make good of bad, and Friends of Foes.
Exeunt. omnes
Actus Tertius. Scena Prima.
Enter Banquo.
Banq. Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
Macbeth |
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 Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: 'Quick, men, get down. We may save him yet.'
But there was no path, and night was come, and the men's nerves
were shaken. The lanthorns had to be lit, and the way to be
retraced; by the time we reached the dark pool which lay below,
the last bubbles were gone from the surface, the last ripples had
beaten themselves out against the banks. The pool still rocked
sullenly, and the yellow light showed a man's hat floating, and
near it a glove three parts submerged. But that was all. The
mute's dying grip had known no loosening, nor his hate any fear.
I heard afterwards that when they dragged the two out next day,
his fingers were in the other's eye-sockets, his teeth in his
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