| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: Philosophers gathered from far and near
To sit at his feat and hear and hear,
Though he never was heard
To utter a word
But "_Abracadabra, abracadab_,
_Abracada, abracad_,
_Abraca, abrac, abra, ab!_"
'Twas all he had,
'Twas all they wanted to hear, and each
Made copious notes of the mystical speech,
Which they published next --
The Devil's Dictionary |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: The song I cannot offer:
My humbler service pray accept --
I'll help to kill the scoffer.
The water-drinkers and the cranks
Who load their skins with liquor --
I'll gladly bear their belly-tanks
And tap them with my sticker.
Fill up, fill up, for wisdom cools
When e'er we let the wine rest.
Here's death to Prohibition's fools,
And every kind of vine-pest!
The Devil's Dictionary |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: to carry on their attacks directly against the curtin, for this reason,
because they are so well flanked. ('Tis the case of other curtains, quoth
Dr. Slop, laughing.) However, continued my uncle Toby, to make them sure,
we generally choose to place ravelins before them, taking care only to
extend them beyond the fosse or ditch:--The common men, who know very
little of fortification, confound the ravelin and the half-moon together,--
tho' they are very different things;--not in their figure or construction,
for we make them exactly alike, in all points; for they always consist of
two faces, making a salient angle, with the gorges, not straight, but in
form of a crescent;--Where then lies the difference? (quoth my father, a
little testily.)--In their situations, answered my uncle Toby:--For when a
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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 Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: I am alone. Eudora --"
The man hesitated. His flushed face had paled. Eudora paced
silently and waveringly at his side.
"Eudora," the man went on, "you know you always used to run away
from me--never gave me a chance to really ask; and I thought you
didn't care. But somehow I have wondered--perhaps because you
never got married--if you didn't quite mean it, if you didn't
quite know your own mind. You'll think I'm a conceited ass, but
I'm not a bad sort, Eudora. I would be as good to you as I know
how, and--we could bring him up together." He pointed to the
carriage. "I have plenty of money. We could do anything we
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