| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: Being oreshooes in bloud, plunge in the deepe, and kill
me too:
The Sunne was not so true vnto the day,
As he to me. Would he haue stollen away,
From sleeping Hermia? Ile beleeue as soone
This whole earth may be bord, and that the Moone
May through the Center creepe, and so displease
Her brothers noonetide, with th'Antipodes.
It cannot be but thou hast murdred him,
So should a murtherer looke, so dead, so grim
Dem. So should the murderer looke, and so should I,
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: gracefulness of the cathedral. A glimpse through a wrought-
iron gate of a delightful garden of spring flowers, alyssum,
aubrietia, snow-upon-the-mountains, daffodils, narcissus and
the like, held them for a time, and then they came out upon
the level, grassy space, surrounded by little ripe old
houses, on which the cathedral stands. They stood for some
moments surveying it.
"It's a perfect little lady of a cathedral," said Sir
Richmond. "But why, I wonder, did we build it? "
"Your memory ought to be better than mine," she said, with
her half-closed eyes blinking up at the sunlit spire sharp
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: Robin Hood Seeks the Curtal Friar
THE STOUT YEOMEN of Sherwood Forest were ever early risers of a morn,
more especially when the summertime had come, for then in the freshness
of the dawn the dew was always the brightest, and the song of the small
birds the sweetest.
Quoth Robin, "Now will I go to seek this same Friar of Fountain Abbey
of whom we spake yesternight, and I will take with me four of my
good men, and these four shall be Little John, Will Scarlet, David
of Doncaster, and Arthur a Bland. Bide the rest of you here,
and Will Stutely shall be your chief while I am gone."
Then straightway Robin Hood donned a fine steel coat of chain mail,
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: O come and fill His sepulchre with flowers.'
Ah, God! Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours
Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain,
The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear.
URBS SACRA AETERNA
Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been;
In the first days thy sword republican
Ruled the whole world for many an age's span:
Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen,
Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen;
And now upon thy walls the breezes fan
|
