| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: From that, alas! thy Lucrece is not free.
'For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight,
With shining falchion in my chamber came
A creeping creature, with a flaming light,
And softly cried Awake, thou Roman dame,
And entertain my love; else lasting shame
On thee and thine this night I will inflict,
If thou my love's desire do contradict.
'For some hard-favour'd groom of thine, quoth he,
Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will,
I'll murder straight, and then I'll slaughter thee
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: "Take me home, will you?"
"Mrs. Bliss is not ready."
"Tell her that I must go."
He went behind her chair and whispered something, and she nodded
to me to go without her.
When her carriage came up, I think he gave the coachman an order
to drive home in a round-about way, for we were a long time reaching
it. I kept my face to the window, and he made no effort to divert
my attention. When we came to a street whose thick rows of trees
shut out the moonlight my eager soul longed to leap out into the
dark and demand of him his heart, soul, life, for *me*.
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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 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Nur. Will you speake well of him,
That kil'd your Cozen?
Iul. Shall I speake ill of him that is my husband?
Ah poore my Lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I thy three houres wife haue mangled it.
But wherefore Villaine did'st thou kill my Cozin?
That Villaine Cozin would haue kil'd my husband:
Backe foolish teares, backe to your natiue spring,
Your tributarie drops belong to woe,
Which you mistaking offer vp to ioy:
My husband liues that Tibalt would haue slaine,
Romeo and Juliet |
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 Riverman by Stewart Edward White: although she would much have liked her son near her.
At Monrovia, then, they took up their quarters. Carroll soon became
acquainted with the life of the place. Monrovia, like most towns of
its sort and size, consisted of an upper stratum of mill owners and
lumber operators, possessed of considerable wealth, some
cultivation, and definite social ideas; a gawky, countrified, middle
estate of storekeepers, catering both to the farm and local trade
and the lumber mill operatives, generally of Holland extraction, who
dwelt in simple unpainted board shanties. The class first mentioned
comprised a small coterie, among whom Carroll soon found two or
three congenials--Edith Fuller, wife of the young cashier in the
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