| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: men, as it were of the Order of Friars, for they be mendicants.
From that city men go by water, solacing and disporting them, till
they come to an abbey of monks that is fast by, that be good
religious men after their faith and law. In that abbey is a great
garden and a fair, where be many trees of diverse manner of fruits.
And in this garden is a little hill full of delectable trees. In
that hill and in that garden be many diverse beasts, as of apes,
marmosets, baboons and many other diverse beasts. And every day,
when the convent of this abbey hath eaten, the almoner let bear the
relief to the garden, and he smiteth on the garden gate with a
clicket of silver that he holdeth in his hand; and anon all the
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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 Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a
work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made
a beautiful thing that is true. The former expression has
reference to style; the latter to subject-matter. But they
probably use the words very vaguely, as an ordinary mob will use
ready-made paving-stones. There is not a single real poet or
prose-writer of this century, for instance, on whom the British
public have not solemnly conferred diplomas of immorality, and
these diplomas practically take the place, with us, of what in
France, is the formal recognition of an Academy of Letters, and
fortunately make the establishment of such an institution quite
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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 The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame!
Grim cave of death, whispering conspirator
With close-tongued treason and the ravisher!
'O hateful, vaporous, and foggy night!
Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,
Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,
Make war against proportion'd course of time!
Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb
His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,
Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.
'With rotten damps ravish the morning air;
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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 Astoria by Washington Irving: intercourse he might have with the tribe. This was a wandering
individual named Edward Rose, whom he had picked up somewhere on
the Missouri - one of those anomalous beings found on the
frontier, who seem to have neither kin nor country. He had lived
some time among the Crows, so as to become acquainted with their
language and customs; and was, withal, a dogged, sullen, silent
fellow, with a sinister aspect, and more of the savage than the
civilized man in his appearance. He was engaged to serve in
general as a hunter, but as guide and interpreter when they
should reach the country of the Crows.
On the 18th of July, Mr. Hunt took up his line of march by land
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