| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare: From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-defying swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou, treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak'st
With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: As he spoke he took from his bag a screwdriver and a wrench,
and very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown open.
The earth smelled musty and close, but we did not somehow seem
to mind, for our attention was concentrated on the Professor.
Taking from his box a piece of the Scared Wafer he laid it
reverently on the earth, and then shutting down the lid began
to screw it home, we aiding him as he worked.
One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes,
and left them as we had found them to all appearance.
But in each was a portion of the Host. When we closed the door
behind us, the Professor said solemnly, "So much is already done.
Dracula |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: Is now a confessional--you, my confessor!"
"I?" she falter'd, and timidly lifted her head.
"Yes! but first answer one other question," he said:
"When a woman once feels that she is not alone:
That the heart of another is warm'd by her own;
That another feels with her whatever she feel
And halves her existence in woe or in weal;
That a man, for her sake, will, so long as he lives,
Live to put forth the strength which the thought of her gives;
Live to shield her from want, and to share with her sorrow;
Live to solace the day, and provide for the morrow:
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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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: them, searched the whole entry and stairway, going down even to
the large, old-fashioned cellar.
Looking about her in this unfamiliar region, her eye fell on a
door that seemed to open into the wall; she had noticed a
similar door on the story above,--one of the closet doors that
had been nailed up by Aunt Jane's order. As she looked,
however, a chill breath blew in from another direction,
extinguishing her lamp. This air came from the outer door of
the cellar, and she had just time to withdraw into a corner
before a man's steps approached, passing close by her.
Even Hope's strong nerves had begun to yield, and a cold
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