| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: guardian of the mountain, round the crest of which the fires of
Loki now break into a red background for the majesty of the god.
But all this is lost on Siegfried Bakoonin. "Aha!" he cries, as
the spear is levelled against his breast: "I have found my
father's foe"; and the spear falls in two pieces under the stroke
of Nothung. "Up then," says Wotan: "I cannot withhold you," and
disappears forever from the eye of man. The fires roll down the
mountain; but Siegfried goes at them as exultantly as he went at
the forging of the sword or the heart of the dragon, and
shoulders his way through them, joyously sounding his horn to the
accompaniment of their crackling and seething. And never a hair
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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 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: knife, but set the plug in between their teeth, and gnaw
with their teeth and tug at the plug with their hands
till they get it in two; then sometimes the one that
owns the tobacco looks mournful at it when it's
handed back, and says, sarcastic:
"Here, gimme the CHAW, and you take the PLUG."
All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn't
nothing else BUT mud -- mud as black as tar and nigh
about a foot deep in some places, and two or three
inches deep in ALL the places. The hogs loafed and
grunted around everywheres. You'd see a muddy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: through the Lothians, with their noble crops of corn, and roots,
and grasses--and their great homesteads, each with its engine
chimney, which makes steam do the work of men--you will see rising
out of the plain, hills of dark rock, sometimes in single knobs,
like Berwick Law or Stirling Crag--sometimes in noble ranges, like
Arthur's Seat, or the Sidlaws, or the Ochils. Think what these
black bare lumps of whinstone are, and what they do. Remember
they are mines--not gold mines, but something richer still--food
mines, which Madam How thrust into the inside of the earth, ages
and ages since, as molten lava rock, and then cooled them and
lifted them up, and pared them away with her ice-plough and her
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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 An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: This good creature, who grieved at making her yearly preserves for no
one but her uncle and herself, was becoming almost ridiculous. Those
who felt a sympathy for her on account of her good qualities, and
others on account of her defects, now made fun of her abortive
marriages. More than one conversation was based on what would become
of so fine a property, together with the old maid's savings and her
uncle's inheritance. For some time past she had been suspected of
being au fond, in spite of appearances, an "original." In the
provinces it was not permissible to be original: being original means
having ideas that are not understood by others; the provinces demand
equality of mind as well as equality of manners and customs.
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