| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: and ran helter-skelter from the Princess.
The most desolate pang was struck into the girl's heart. Here she
was, twenty-two - soon twenty-three - and not a creature loved her;
none but Otto; and would even he forgive? If she began weeping in
these woods alone, it would mean death or madness. Hastily she trod
the thoughts out like a burning paper; hastily rolled up her locks,
and with terror dogging her, and her whole bosom sick with grief,
resumed her journey.
Past ten in the forenoon, she struck a high-road, marching in that
place uphill between two stately groves, a river of sunlight; and
here, dead weary, careless of consequences, and taking some courage
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: the Gods in thanksgiving.
LXXVI
How then may this be attained?--Resolve, now if never
before, to approve thyself to thyself; resolve to show thyself
fair in God's sight; long to be pure with thine own pure self and
God!
LXXVII
That is the true athlete, that trains himself to resist such
outward impressions as these.
"Stay, wretched man! suffer not thyself to be carried away!"
Great is the combat, divine the task! you are fighting for
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: Fly from our country pastimes, fly,
Sad troops of human misery.
Come, serene looks,
Clear as the crystal brooks,
Or the pure azur'd heaven that smiles to see
The rich attendance of our poverty:
Peace and a secure mind,
Which all men seek, we only find.
Abused mortals I did you know
Where joy, heart's-ease, and comforts grow,
You'd scorn proud towers,
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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 Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: about the Forty Thieves boiled in oil, or Ali Baba and his donkey,
or poor man Friday to whom Robinson Crusoe was so kind; and Cully
relating in return how Jimmie Finn smashed Pat Gilsey's face
because he threw stones at his sister, ending with a full account
of a dog-fight which a "snoozer of a cop" stopped with his club.
So when Patsy came limping up the garden path this morning,
rubbing his eyes, his voice choking, and the tears streaming, and,
burying his little face in Cully's jacket, poured out his tale of
insult and suffering, that valiant defender of the right pulled
his cap tight over his eyes and began a still-hunt through the
tenements. There, as he afterwards expressed it, he "mopped up
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