| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: on any of the indorsers.
CRABTREE. Well for my Part I believe there never was a Scandalous
Tale without some foundation.<3>
LADY SNEERWELL. Come Ladies shall we sit down to Cards in the next
Room?
Enter SERVANT, whispers SIR PETER
SIR PETER. I'll be with them directly.--
[Exit SERVANT.]
I'll get away unperceived.
LADY SNEERWELL. Sir Peter you are not leaving us?
SIR PETER. Your Ladyship must excuse me--I'm called away by
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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 Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: Ev'ry drop, delighted,
Turns to spray in merry play
As we tumble on our way!"
Next Claus searched for roots to eat, while the daffodils turned their
little eyes up to him laughingly and lisped their dainty song:
"Blooming fairly, growing rarely,
Never flowerets were so gay!
Perfume breathing, joy bequeathing,
As our colors we display."
It made Claus laugh to hear the little things voice their happiness as
they nodded gracefully on their stems. But another strain caught his
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: with three rows of teeth apiece. In manus tuas. Orate pro anima--!"
And so forth, in more frantic case than ever was Panurge in that
his ever-memorable seasickness; till the English, expecting him
every minute to be snapped up by sharks, or brained by the
Spaniard's oars, let fly a volley into the fugitives, on which they
all leaped overboard like their fellows; whereon Jack scrambled
into the boat, and drawing sword with one hand, while he wiped the
water out of his eyes with the other, began to lay about him like a
very lion, cutting the empty air, and crying, "Yield, idolaters!
Yield, Spanish dogs!" However, coming to himself after a while,
and seeing that there was no one on whom to flesh his maiden steel,
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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 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: who join'd in admiring them. Among the rest, I became one of his
constant hearers, his sermons pleasing me, as they had little
of the dogmatical kind, but inculcated strongly the practice
of virtue, or what in the religious stile are called good works.
Those, however, of our congregation, who considered themselves
as orthodox Presbyterians, disapprov'd his doctrine, and were join'd
by most of the old clergy, who arraign'd him of heterodoxy before
the synod, in order to have him silenc'd. I became his zealous partisan,
and contributed all I could to raise a party in his favour, and we
combated for him a while with some hopes of success. There was much
scribbling pro and con upon the occasion; and finding that, tho'
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
