| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Did glimmer on dead Sardis, -- men were gay;
And there were little children here to play,
With small soft hands that once did keep in tune
The strings that stretch from heaven, till too soon
The change came, and the music passed away.
Now there is nothing but the ghosts of things, --
No life, no love, no children, and no men;
And over the forgotten place there clings
The strange and unrememberable light
That is in dreams. The music failed, and then
God frowned, and shut the village from His sight.
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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 Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: set sail for Ptarth. There we remained, the guest of Thuvan Dihn,
for a month; and I could see that Carthoris would have remained
forever had he not been a Prince of Helium.
Above the mighty forests of Kaol we hovered until word from
Kulan Tith brought us to his single landing-tower, where all day
and half a night the vessels disembarked their crews. At the city
of Kaol we visited, cementing the new ties that had been formed
between Kaol and Helium, and then one long-to-be-remembered day we
sighted the tall, thin towers of the twin cities of Helium.
The Warlord of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: When once more the child was cuddled against her, she realized
that in some mystical way there was a new bond between them, and
as the days passed, she discovered it was not so much the
whipping, but the unnatural perfidy of Dorcas that had scarred
his mind. With his own eyes he had seen a mother devour her baby.
He woke from dreams of it at night. Even the sight of her in the
pasture contentedly suckling the remaining nine did not reassure
him. The modern methods of psychology were then, to such women as
Rose, a sealed book, but love and intuition taught her to apply
them.
"You see, Billy," she explained, "hogs are meant to eat meat like
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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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: when suddenly we heard the drums begin to beat and distant shouts.
ACCUSTOMED AS WE ARE to revolutions, we never thought of being
frightened.' For all that, they resumed their return home. On the
way they saw men running and vociferating, but nothing to indicate
a general disturbance, until, near the Duke's palace, they came
upon and passed a shouting mob dragging along with it three cannon.
It had scarcely passed before they heard 'a rushing sound'; one of
the gentlemen thrust back the party of ladies under a shed, and the
mob passed again. A fine-looking young man was in their hands; and
Mrs. Jenkin saw him with his mouth open as if he sought to speak,
saw him tossed from one to another like a ball, and then saw him no
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