| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: Couldn't you cough?
CECILY. But I haven't got a cough.
GWENDOLEN. They're looking at us. What effrontery!
CECILY. They're approaching. That's very forward of them.
GWENDOLEN. Let us preserve a dignified silence.
CECILY. Certainly. It's the only thing to do now. [Enter JACK
followed by ALGERNON. They whistle some dreadful popular air from
a British Opera.]
GWENDOLEN. This dignified silence seems to produce an unpleasant
effect.
CECILY. A most distasteful one.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: papers in my hands, with the liberty to dispose of them as I
should think fit. I have carefully perused them three times.
The style is very plain and simple; and the only fault I find is,
that the author, after the manner of travellers, is a little too
circumstantial. There is an air of truth apparent through the
whole; and indeed the author was so distinguished for his
veracity, that it became a sort of proverb among his neighbours
at Redriff, when any one affirmed a thing, to say, it was as true
as if Mr. Gulliver had spoken it.
By the advice of several worthy persons, to whom, with the
author's permission, I communicated these papers, I now venture
Gulliver's Travels |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: would ask her if there were any one he could kill for her that day--a
little joke at the expense of the abbots. With the exception of the
potentates among the high clergy with whom Madame Imperia managed to
accommodate her little tempers, she ruled everyone with a high hand in
virtue of her pretty babble and enchanting ways, which enthralled the
most virtuous and the most unimpressionable. Thus she lived beloved
and respected, quite as much as the real ladies and princesses, and
was called Madame, concerning which the good Emperor Sigismund replied
to a lady who complained of it to him, "That they, the good ladies,
might keep to their own proper way and holy virtues, and Madame
Imperia to the sweet naughtiness of the goddess Venus"--Christian
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
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 Paradise Lost by John Milton: This my long sufferance, and my day of grace,
They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;
But hard be harden'd, blind be blinded more,
That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;
And none but such from mercy I exclude.
But yet all is not done; Man disobeying,
Disloyal, breaks his fealty, and sins
Against the high supremacy of Heaven,
Affecting God-head, and, so losing all,
To expiate his treason hath nought left,
But to destruction sacred and devote,
Paradise Lost |
