| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: from his wings, soared singing up to the sunny sky.
On through the fragrant air went Thistle, looking with glad face
upon the fair, fresh earth below, where flowers looked smiling up,
and green trees bowed their graceful heads as if to welcome him. Soon
the forest where Lily-Bell lay sleeping rose before him, and as he
passed along the cool, dim wood-paths, never had they seemed so fair.
But when he came where his little friend had slept, it was no longer
the dark, silent spot where he last saw her. Garlands hung from every
tree, and the fairest flowers filled the air with their sweet breath.
Bird's gay voices echoed far and wide, and the little brook went
singing by, beneath the arching ferns that bent above it; green
Flower Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: the phrases from their (so-called) natural order is luminous
for the mind; and it is by the means of such designed
reversal that the elements of a judgment may be most
pertinently marshalled, or the stages of a complicated action
most perspicuously bound into one.
The web, then, or the pattern: a web at once sensuous and
logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style,
that is the foundation of the art of literature. Books
indeed continue to be read, for the interest of the fact or
fable, in which this quality is poorly represented, but still
it will be there. And, on the other hand, how many do we
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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 Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: O'er my lovely infant's head!
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams
By happy, silent, moony beams!
Sweet Sleep, with soft down
Weave thy brows an infant crown!
Sweet Sleep, angel mild,
Hover o'er my happy child!
Sweet smiles, in the night
Hover over my delight!
Sweet smiles, mother's smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: 'If he be dead, O no! it cannot be,
Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it;
O yes! it may; thou hast no eyes to see,
But hatefully at random dost thou hit. 940
Thy mark is feeble age, but thy false dart
Mistakes that aim and cleaves an infant's heart.
'Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,
And, hearing him, thy power had lost his power. 944
The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke;
They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck'st a flower.
Love's golden arrow at him shoull have fled,
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