| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: He examined my eyes, my mouth, and my legs; he felt them all down;
and then I had to walk and trot and gallop before him.
He seemed to like me, and said, "When he has been well broken in
he will do very well." My master said he would break me in himself,
as he should not like me to be frightened or hurt,
and he lost no time about it, for the next day he began.
Every one may not know what breaking in is, therefore I will describe it.
It means to teach a horse to wear a saddle and bridle,
and to carry on his back a man, woman or child; to go just the way they wish,
and to go quietly. Besides this he has to learn to wear a collar, a crupper,
and a breeching, and to stand still while they are put on;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills.'
There is hardly a field here that has not, thank God, its running
brook, or its sweet spring, from which our cattle were drinking
their health and life, while in the clay-lands of Cheshire, and in
the Cambridgeshire fens--which were drained utterly dry--the poor
things drank no water, too often, save that of the very same
putrid ponds in which they had been standing all day long, to cool
themselves, and to keep off the flies. I do not say, of course,
that bad water caused the cattle-plague. It came by infection
from the East of Europe. But I say that bad water made the cattle
ready to take it, and made it spread over the country; and when
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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: Which with sweet water nightly I will dewe,
Or wanting that, with teares destil'd by mones;
The obsequies that I for thee will keepe,
Nightly shall be, to strew thy graue, and weepe.
Whistle Boy.
The Boy giues warning, something doth approach,
What cursed foot wanders this wayes to night,
To crosse my obsequies, and true loues right?
What with a Torch? Muffle me night a while.
Enter Romeo, and Peter.
Rom. Giue me that Mattocke, & the wrenching Iron,
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 Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: "Fugitives as they are, these men at this moment await with
perfect confidence and unshaken faith the arrival of the Scarlet
Pimpernel, who has pledged his honour to take them safely across the
Channel.
Indeed, she had forgotten! With the sublime selfishness of a
woman who loves with her whole heart, she had in the last twenty-four
hours had no thought save for him. His precious, noble life, his
danger--he, the loved one, the brave hero, he alone dwelt in her mind.
"My brother!" she murmured, as one by one the heavy tears
gathered in her eyes, as memory came back to her of Armand, the
companion and darling of her childhood, the man for whom she had
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
