| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tanach: 1_Chronicles 15: 13 For because ye bore it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought Him not according to the ordinance.'
1_Chronicles 15: 14 So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the LORD, the God of Israel.
1_Chronicles 15: 15 And the children of the Levites bore the ark of God upon their shoulders with the bars thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of the LORD.
1_Chronicles 15: 16 And David spoke to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren the singers, with instruments of music, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding aloud and lifting up the voice with joy.
1_Chronicles 15: 17 So the Levites appointed Heman the son of Joel; and of his brethren, Asaph the son of Berechiah; and of the sons of Merari their brethren, Ethan the son of Kushaiah;
1_Chronicles 15: 18 and with them their brethren of the second degree, Zechariah, Ben, and Jaaziel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Unni, Eliab, and Benaiah, and Maaseiah, and Mattithiah, and Eliphalehu, and Mikneiah, and Obed-edom, and Jeiel, the doorkeepers.
1_Chronicles 15: 19 So the singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan ,were appointed, with cymbals of brass to sound aloud;
1_Chronicles 15: 20 and Zechariah, and Aziel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Unni, and Eliab, and Maaseiah, and Benaiah, with psalteries set to Alamoth;
1_Chronicles 15: 21 and Mattithiah, and Eliphalehu, and Mikneiahu, and Obed-edom, and Jeiel, and Azaziah, with harps on the Sheminith, to lead.
The Tanach |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: "You? Are you a musician. then? Do you even know what music is?"
A flame danced in Gleameil's eyes.
"Maskull thinks music reposes in the instrument," she said in her
intense way. "But it is in the soul of the Master."
"Yes," said Earthrid, "but that is not all. I will tell you what it
is. In Threal, where I was born and brought up, we learn the mystery
of the Three in nature. This world, which lies extended before us,
has three directions. Length is the line which shuts off what is,
from what is not. Breadth is the surface which shows us in what
manner one thing of what-is, lives with another thing. Depth is the
path which leads from what-is, to our own body. In music it is not
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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 Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: shortly from behind the closed curtains.
"I beg your pahdon, your royal highness. I should have had myself
announced and craved an audience, I reckon," was Bucky's ironic
retort; and swiftly on the heels of it he added. "You make me
tired, kid."
O'Connor was destined to be "made tired" a good many times in the
course of the next few days. In all the little personal
intimacies Frank possessed a delicate fastidiousness outside the
experience of the ranger. He was a scrupulously clean man
himself, and rather nice as to his personal habits, but it did
not throw him into a flame of embarrassment to brush his teeth
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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 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: who writes to see clearly what he wants to say, and to be able to make
his readers see it clearly also. And yet one natural strain is heard
amid all this artificial jingle--that of Theocritus. It is not
altogether Alexandrian. Its sweetest notes were learnt amid the
chestnut groves and orchards, the volcanic glens and sunny pastures of
Sicily; but the intercourse, between the courts of Hiero and the
Ptolemies seems to have been continual. Poets and philosophers moved
freely from one to the other, and found a like atmosphere in both; and
in one of Theocritus' idyls, two Sicilian gentlemen, crossed in love,
agree to sail for Alexandria, and volunteer into the army of the great
and good king Ptolemy, of whom a sketch is given worth reading; as a man
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