| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: And it's little they've accomplished at the ending of the day.
It is rest they're vainly seeking, love and laughter in the gloam,
But they'll never come to claim it, save they claim it here at home.
For the peace that is the sweetest isn't born of minted gold,
And the joy that lasts the longest and still lingers when we're old
Is no dim and distant pleasure--it is not to-morrow's prize,
It is not the end of toiling, or the rainbdw of our sighs.
It' is every day within us--all the rest is hippodrome--
And the soul that is the gladdest is the soul that builds a home.
They are fools who build for glory! They are fools who pin their hopes
On the come and go of battles or some vessel's slender ropes.
Just Folks |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Bent his knees down, like a squirrel,
Drew his arms back, like a cricket.
"Once he leaped," said old Iagoo,
"Once he leaped, and lo! above him
Bent the sky, as ice in rivers
When the waters rise beneath it;
Twice he leaped, and lo! above him
Cracked the sky, as ice in rivers
When the freshet is at highest!
Thrice he leaped, and lo! above him
Broke the shattered sky asunder,
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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 Dreams by Olive Schreiner: inwards beholds himself.
They saw its past, its childhood, the tiny life with the dew upon it; they
saw its youth when the dew was melting, and the creature raised its
Lilliputian mouth to drink from a cup too large for it, and they saw how
the water spilt; they saw its hopes that were never realized; they saw its
hours of intellectual blindness, men call sin; they saw its hours of all-
radiating insight, which men call righteousness; they saw its hour of
strength, when it leaped to its feet crying, "I am omnipotent;" its hour of
weakness, when it fell to the earth and grasped dust only; they saw what it
might have been, but never would be.
The man bent forward.
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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 Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: had happened to incur her displeasure.
As spring came on, Douglas carried Polly down to the sun-lit
garden beneath the window; and Mandy fluttered about arranging
the cushions with motherly solicitude.
More days slipped by, and Polly began to creep through the
little, soft-leaved trees at the back of the church, and to look
for the deep, blue, sweet-scented violets. When she was able,
Douglas took her with him to visit some of the outlying houses of
the poor. Her woman's instinct was quick to perceive many small
needs in their lives that he had overlooked, and to suggest
simple, inexpensive joys that made them her devoted friends.
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