| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: you that this also is a piece of nature in the most
intimate sense; that this profusion of eccentricities,
this dream in masonry and living rock, is not a drop-
scene in a theatre, but a city in the world of every-day
reality, connected by railway and telegraph-wire with all
the capitals of Europe, and inhabited by citizens of the
familiar type, who keep ledgers, and attend church, and
have sold their immortal portion to a daily paper. By
all the canons of romance, the place demands to be half
deserted and leaning towards decay; birds we might admit
in profusion, the play of the sun and winds, and a few
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: 'For, when our souls have learned the heat to bear,
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,
Saying, "Come out from the grove, my love and care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice."'
Thus did my mother say, and kissed me,
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black, and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,
I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: The old man and the boy in the front yard heard her distinctly.
The old man's face was imperturbable. The boy grinned.
Two other women, all clad in lavender, appeared in the doorway.
They also bent over the blue and white bundle. They also said
something about the darling coming to see his aunties. Then
there ensued the softest chorus of lady-laughter, as if at some
hidden joke.
"Come in, Eudora dear," said Amelia Lancaster. "Yes, come in,
Eudora dear," said Anna Lancaster. "Yes, come in, Eudora dear,"
said Sophia Willing.
Sophia looked much older than her sisters, but with that
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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 Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: though, in case she should mislippen something of what we're gaun
to do--we maunna vex her at nae rate--it was amaist the last word
my father said to me on his deathbed."
"By no means, Hobbie," said Earnscliff; "she well merits all your
attention."
"Troth, for that matter, she would be as sair vexed amaist for
you as for me. But d'ye really think there's nae presumption in
venturing back yonder?--We hae nae special commission, ye ken."
"If I thought as you do, Hobbie," said the young gentleman, "I
would not perhaps enquire farther into this business; but as I am
of opinion that preternatural visitations are either ceased
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