| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: one he himself, and all will be as one."
The old man spoke loudly and often looked round, evidently
wishing that as many as possible should hear him.
"And have you long held this faith?"
"I? A long time. This is the twenty-third year that they
persecute me."
"Persecute you? How?
"As they persecuted Christ, so they persecute me. They seize me,
and take me before the courts and before the priests, the Scribes
and the Pharisees. Once they put me into a madhouse; but they can
do nothing because I am free. They say, 'What is your name?'
Resurrection |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: Bartholomew's. Not a stage-coachman of Bull-and-Mouth
Street but touches his hat as he passes; and he is considered
quite a patron at the coach-office of the Goose and Gridiron,
St. Paul's churchyard. His family have been very urgent for
him to make an expedition to Margate, but he has great doubts
of those new gimcracks, the steamboats, and indeed thinks
himself too advanced in life to undertake sea-voyages.
Little Britain has occasionally its factions and divisions, and
party spirit ran very high at one time in consequence of two
rival "Burial Societies" being set up in the place. One held its
meeting at the Swan and Horse Shoe, and was patronized by the
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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 Bucolics by Virgil: Tough oaks bear golden apples, alder-trees
Bloom with narcissus-flower, the tamarisk
Sweat with rich amber, and the screech-owl vie
In singing with the swan: let Tityrus
Be Orpheus, Orpheus in the forest-glade,
Arion 'mid his dolphins on the deep.
"Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.
Yea, be the whole earth to mid-ocean turned!
Farewell, ye woodlands I from the tall peak
Of yon aerial rock will headlong plunge
Into the billows: this my latest gift,
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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 Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: them silent.
"Three hundred years odd," said Mr. Pepper meditatively at length.
As nobody said, "What?" he merely extracted a bottle and swallowed
a pill. The piece of information that died within him was to the effect
that three hundred years ago five Elizabethan barques had anchored
where the _Euphrosyne_ now floated. Half-drawn up upon the beach
lay an equal number of Spanish galleons, unmanned, for the country
was still a virgin land behind a veil. Slipping across the water,
the English sailors bore away bars of silver, bales of linen,
timbers of cedar wood, golden crucifixes knobbed with emeralds.
When the Spaniards came down from their drinking, a fight ensued,
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