| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: A dozen angry models jetted steam:
A petty railway ran: a fire-balloon
Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves
And dropt a fairy parachute and past:
And there through twenty posts of telegraph
They flashed a saucy message to and fro
Between the mimic stations; so that sport
Went hand in hand with Science; otherwhere
Pure sport; a herd of boys with clamour bowled
And stumped the wicket; babies rolled about
Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids
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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 $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: I was looking so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone.
I went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole.
I put my finger in, to feel it, and said OUCH! and took it
out again. It was a cruel pain. I put my finger in my mouth;
and by standing first on one foot and then the other, and grunting,
I presently eased my misery; then I was full of interest, and began
to examine.
I was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the name of it
occurred to me, though I had never heard of it before. It was FIRE!
I was as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world.
So without hesitation I named it that--fire.
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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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: have appeared according to a law which, as far as we can judge, has
been on the whole one of progress, - lower animals (though we
cannot yet say, the lowest) appearing first, and man, the highest
mammal, "the roof and crown of things," one of the latest in the
series. We have no more right, let it be observed, to say that
man, the highest, appeared last, than that the lowest appeared
first. It was probably so, in both cases; but there is as yet no
positive proof of either; and as we know that species of animals
lower than those which already existed appeared again and again
during the various eras, so it is quite possible that they may be
appearing now, and may appear hereafter: and that for every
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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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: WIFE.
His wife, an 't like your worship.
GLOSTER.
Hadst thou been his mother, thou couldst
have better told.
KING.
Where wert thou born?
SIMPCOX.
At Berwick in the north, an 't like your grace.
KING.
Poor soul, God's goodness hath been great to thee;
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