| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: He called up all the girls and boys--
"And they all ran to hear him play,
"Over the hills and far away!--"
Suddenly a little smothered voice
chimed in--
"Over the hills and a great way off,
The wind shall blow my top knot
off."
Pigling Bland put down a plate
which he was wiping, and listened.
After a long pause, Pigling went
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: the good priest had the best of reputations, that of a man valiant
under arms. So he lived like a king. He made money with holy water;
sprinkled it and transmitted the holy water into good wine. More than
that, his name lay snugly in all the et ceteras of the notaries, in
wills or in caudicils, which certain people have falsely written
CODICIL, seeing that the word is derived from cauda, as if to say the
tail of the legacy. In fact, the good old Long Skirts would have been
made an archbishop if he had only said in joke, "I should like to put
on a mitre for a handkerchief in order to have my head warmer." Of all
the benefices offered to him, he chose only a simple canon's stall to
keep the good profits of the confessional. But one day the courageous
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: came toward us in light, soft, intermittent leaps, until he was
close to the rail of the burial-ground. He was on a grave with a
broad blue-slate-stone at its head, and a shrub growing on it. The
stone said this was the grave of a young man who was the son of an
Honorable gentleman, and who died a hundred years ago and more. -
Oh, yes, DIED, - with a small triangular mark in one breast, and
another smaller opposite, in his back, where another young man's
rapier had slid through his body; and so he lay down out there on
the Common, and was found cold the next morning, with the night-
dews and the death-dews mingled on his forehead.
Let us have one look at poor Benjamin's grave, - said I. - His
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
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 Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: upon the shore. Here he lay weeping bitterly, till a voice beside him
said, "Poor little Elf, what has befallen you? These rough waves are
not fit playmates for so delicate a thing as you. Tell me your
sorrow, and I will comfort you."
And Thistle, looking up, saw a white sea-bird at his side, who tried
with friendly words to cheer him. So he told all his wanderings,
and how he sought the Sea Spirits.
"Surely, if bee and blossom do their part to help you, birds should
aid you too," said the Sea-bird. "I will call my friend, the
Nautilus, and he will bear you safely to the Coral Palace where the
Spirits dwell."
Flower Fables |
