| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: Death in the garden lies dead.
Terror that hid in the roses is impotent--flung on the dung-hill
and dead!
Who has delivered us, who?
Tell me his nest and his name.
Rikki, the valiant, the true,
Tikki, with eyeballs of flame,
Rikk-tikki-tikki, the ivory-fanged, the hunter with eyeballs of
flame!
Give him the Thanks of the Birds,
Bowing with tail feathers spread!
The Jungle Book |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: Yet the whole life of Christ - so entirely may sorrow and beauty be
made one in their meaning and manifestation - is really an idyll,
though it ends with the veil of the temple being rent, and the
darkness coming over the face of the earth, and the stone rolled to
the door of the sepulchre. One always thinks of him as a young
bridegroom with his companions, as indeed he somewhere describes
himself; as a shepherd straying through a valley with his sheep in
search of green meadow or cool stream; as a singer trying to build
out of the music the walls of the City of God; or as a lover for
whose love the whole world was too small. His miracles seem to me
to be as exquisite as the coming of spring, and quite as natural.
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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 The Talisman by Walter Scott: devouring, wine-swilling English mastiffs, get ye to your guard
again, and be sure you keep it more warily. Think not you are
now in your own land of fair play, where men speak before they
strike, and shake hands ere they cut throats. Danger in our land
walks openly, and with his blade drawn, and defies the foe whom
he means to assault; but here he challenges you with a silk glove
instead of a steel gauntlet, cuts your throat with the feather of
a turtle-dove, stabs you with the tongue of a priest's brooch, or
throttles you with the lace of my lady's boddice, Go to--keep
your eyes open and your mouths shut--drink less, and look sharper
about you; or I will place your huge stomachs on such short
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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 Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: horror, an uncontrollable, quivering passion shook her very soul.
It was sheer human glory in the deed of a fearless man. It was
hot, primitive instinct to live--to fight. It was a kind of mad
joy in Venters's chivalry. It was close to the wrath that had
first shaken her in the beginning of this war waged upon
her.
"Well, well, Jane, don't take it that way," said Lassiter, in
evident distress. "I had to tell you. There's some things a
feller jest can't keep. It's strange you give up on hearin' that,
when all this long time you've been the gamest woman I ever seen.
But I don't know women. Mebbe there's reason for you to cry. I
Riders of the Purple Sage |
