| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: more, was said--it was the apparent heart that went with his
request--which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I
accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very
singular summons.
Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet
I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always
excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very
ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar
sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages,
in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in
repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: take her son with her, and to steal the crown jewels, together
with the king's best robes, and whatever other valuable things
she could lay hands on; and getting into the chariot, she
whipped up the snakes, and ascended high over the city.
The king, hearing the hiss of the serpents, scrambled as fast
as he could to the window, and bawled out to the abominable
enchantress never to come back. The whole people of Athens,
too, who had run out of doors to see this wonderful spectacle,
set up a shout of joy at the prospect of getting rid of her.
Medea, almost bursting with rage, uttered precisely such a hiss
as one of her own snakes, only ten times more venomous and
Tanglewood Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: "She will deem it a trick of the eyes, a fancy born in the head;
But time must be given the fool to nourish a fool's belief."
So for a while, a sedulous fisher, he walked the reef,
Pausing at times and gazing, striking at times with the spear:
- Lastly, uttered the call; and even as the boat drew near,
Like a man that was done with its use, tossed the torch in the sea.
Lightly he leaped on the boat beside the woman; and she
Lightly addressed him, and yielded the paddle and place to sit;
For now the torch was extinguished the night was black as the pit
Rahero set him to row, never a word he spoke,
And the boat sang in the water urged by his vigorous stroke.
Ballads |
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 The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: The whole of this little valley belonged to three brothers,
called Schwartz, Hans, and Gluck. Schwartz and Hans, the two elder
brothers, were very ugly men, with overhanging eyebrows and small,
dull eyes which were always half shut, so that you couldn't see into
THEM and always fancied they saw very far into YOU. They lived by
farming the Treasure Valley, and very good farmers they were. They
killed everything that did not pay for its eating. They shot the
blackbirds because they pecked the fruit, and killed the hedgehogs
lest they should suck the cows; they poisoned the crickets for
eating the crumbs in the kitchen, and smothered the cicadas which
used to sing all summer in the lime trees. They worked their
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