| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The bowman could not travel at the pace set by Carthoris,
whose muscles carried him with great rapidity over the
face of the small planet, the force of gravity of which
exerts so much less retarding power than that of the Earth.
Fifty miles a day is a fair average for a Barsoomian,
but the son of John Carter might easily have covered
a hundred or more miles had he cared to desert his
new-found comrade.
All the way they were in constant danger of discovery
by roving bands of Torquasians, and especially was this
true before they reached the boundary of Torquas.
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: happened to see a person standing over the place it'd
give him the cold shivers, and loaded him up with
suspicions, and he would sit up that night till the town
was still and dark, and then he would sneak there and
get it out and bury it in another place. Of course,
people got to avoiding him and shaking their heads
and whispering, because, the way he was looking and
acting, they judged he had killed somebody or done
something terrible, they didn't know what, and if he
had been a stranger they would've lynched him.
Well, as I was saying, it got so he couldn't stand it
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: symbol of Life, and round it a snake, the symbol of Eternity. The
gold was for the most part melted, but the stone, being so hard
and protected by the shield and asbestos cloak, for such I
suppose it was, had resisted the fury of the flash. Only now it
was white instead of black, like a burnt onyx that had known the
funeral pyre. Indeed, perhaps it was an onyx. I kissed it and hid
it away, for it seemed to me to convey a greeting and with it a
promise.
Then we started, a very sad and dejected trio. Leaving with a
shudder that vast place where the blue lights played eternally,
we came to the shaft up and down which the travelling stone
When the World Shook |
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 Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: "Bluffed -- raised out on a bluff," said he, "for if my name's Tom Hall,
You must set a thief to catch a thief -- and a thief has caught us all!
By every butt in Oregon and every spar in Maine,
The hand that spilled the wind from her sail was the hand of Reuben Paine!
He has rigged and trigged her with paint and spar,
and, faith, he has faked her well --
But I'd know the ~Stralsund~'s deckhouse yet from here to the booms o' Hell.
Oh, once we ha' met at Baltimore, and twice on Boston pier,
But the sickest day for you, Reuben Paine, was the day that you came here --
The day that you came here, my lad, to scare us from our seal
With your funnel made o' your painted cloth, and your guns o' rotten deal!
Verses 1889-1896 |
