| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: along
the little streams, and in the midst of all stood the city,
white and wonderful and radiant.
When the travelers saw it they were filled with awe and joy.
They passed over the little streams and among the orchards
quickly and silently, as if they feared to speak lest the city
should vanish.
The wall of the city was very low, a child could see over it,
for it was made only of precious stones, which are never large.
The gate of the city was not like a gate a all, for it was not
barred with iron or wood, but only a single pearl, softly
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: And put strange pity in their horned countenance.
Laelaps lies beneath, and shows by his panting the rapid pace of
death. On the other side of the group, Virtuous Love with 'vans
dejected' holds forth the arrow to an approaching troop of sylvan
people, fauns, rams, goats, satyrs, and satyr-mothers, pressing
their children tighter with their fearful hands, who hurry along
from the left in a sunken path between the foreground and a rocky
wall, on whose lowest ridge a brook-guardian pours from her urn her
grief-telling waters. Above and more remote than the Ephidryad,
another female, rending her locks, appears among the vine-festooned
pillars of an unshorn grove. The centre of the picture is filled
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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 The Cavalry General by Xenophon: and with notes, by Morris H. Morgan, p. 76.
On occasions when the display takes place in the hippodrome,[16] the
best arrangement would be, in the first place, that the troops should
fill the entire space with extended front, so forcing out the mob of
people from the centre;[17] and secondly, that in the sham fight[18]
which ensues, the tribal squadrons, swiftly pursuing and retiring,
should gallop right across and through each other, the two hipparchs
at their head, each with five squadrons under him. Consider the effect
of such a spectacle: the grim advance of rival squadrons front to
front; the charge; the solemn pause as, having swept across the
hippodrome, they stand once more confronting one another; and then the
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