| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: six feet tall and stood shoulder to shoulder Rob saw that he could not
hope to pass them without using his electric tube.
"Stand aside, you fellows!" he ordered.
There was no response. He extended the tube and, as he pressed the
button, described a semi-circle with the instrument. Immediately the
tall guardsmen toppled over like so many tenpins, and Rob stepped
across their bodies and penetrated to the reception room, where a
brilliant assemblage awaited, in hushed and anxious groups, for
opportunity to obtain audience with the king.
"I hope his Majesty isn't busy," said Rob to a solemn-visaged official
who confronted him. "I want to have a little talk with him."
The Master Key |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:
THE SEA-WIFE
There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate,
And a wealthy wife is she;
She breeds a breed o' rovin' men
Verses 1889-1896 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson: Till far to-morrow, fare you well!
2. Shadow March
All around the house is the jet-black night;
It stares through the window-pane;
It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light,
And it moves with the moving flame.
Now my little heart goes a beating like a drum,
With the breath of the Bogies in my hair;
And all around the candle and the crooked shadows come,
And go marching along up the stair.
The shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp,
A Child's Garden of Verses |
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 A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down
stairs, and I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to
think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?
- And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word. - Make the
most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another
word for a tower; - and a tower is but another word for a house you
can't get out of. - Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a
year. - But with nine livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper, and
patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may do very well within, -
at least for a mouth or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a
harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better
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