| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: "Counts it honour to hate you, honour to fall by your spears."
And Rua straightened his back. "O Vais, a scheme for a scheme!"
Cried Rua and turned and descended the turbulent stair of the stream,
Leaping from rock to rock as the water-wagtail at home
Flits through resonant valleys and skims by boulder and foam.
And Rua burst from the glen and leaped on the shore of the brook,
And straight for the roofs of the clan his vigorous way he took.
Swift were the heels of his flight, and loud behind as he went
Rattled the leaping stones on the line of his long descent.
And ever he thought as he ran, and caught at his gasping breath,
"O the fool of a Rua, Rua that runs to his death!
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: to see this hillside. You two have broken up almost the whole of the
land on it yourselves."
"Lord! yes, sir," answered the old woman, "it has been our doing! We
have fairly earned our bread."
"Work, you see, and land to cultivate are the poor man's consols. That
good man would think himself disgraced if he went into the poorhouse
or begged for his bread; he would choose to die pickaxe in hand, out
in the open, in the sunlight. Faith, he bears a proud heart in him. He
has worked until work has become his very life; and yet death has no
terrors for him! He is a profound philosopher, little as he suspects
it. Old Moreau's case suggested the idea to me of founding an
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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 Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: rights.
"That was a relief," said the neighboring houses.
A fine house was built there, with large windows, and smooth white walls; but
before it, where the old house had in fact stood, was a little garden laid
out, and a wild grapevine ran up the wall of the neighboring house. Before the
garden there was a large iron railing with an iron door, it looked quite
splendid, and people stood still and peeped in, and the sparrows hung by
scores in the vine, and chattered away at each other as well as they could,
but it was not about the old house, for they could not remember it, so many
years had passed--so many that the little boy had grown up to a whole man,
yes, a clever man, and a pleasure to his parents; and he had just been
Fairy Tales |
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 Georgics by Virgil: The Ausonian swains, a race from Troy derived,
Make merry with rough rhymes and boisterous mirth,
Grim masks of hollowed bark assume, invoke
Thee with glad hymns, O Bacchus, and to thee
Hang puppet-faces on tall pines to swing.
Hence every vineyard teems with mellowing fruit,
Till hollow vale o'erflows, and gorge profound,
Where'er the god hath turned his comely head.
Therefore to Bacchus duly will we sing
Meet honour with ancestral hymns, and cates
And dishes bear him; and the doomed goat
Georgics |
