| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: "Good, my child. Now kiss me; and you, too, Charlotte. Never
forget me."
"Oh! never, never!" cried both the children, throwing their
arms around their father's neck.
"Farewell," said Charles, "farewell, my children. Take them
away, Juxon; their tears will deprive me of the courage to
die."
Juxon led them away, and this time the doors were left open.
Meanwhile, Athos, in his concealment, waited in vain the
signal to recommence his work. Two long hours he waited in
terrible inaction. A deathlike silence reigned in the room
Twenty Years After |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: 'O Jove!' quoth she, 'how much a fool was I,
To be of such a weak and silly mind 1016
To wail his death who lives and must not die
Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind;
For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again. 1020
'Fie, fie, fond love! thou art so full of fear
As one with treasure laden, hemm'd with thieves
Trifles, unwitnessed with eye or ear,
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.' 1024
Even at this word she hears a merry horn
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: engaged in the same manner and had created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity
had desolated my heart and filled it forever with the bitterest remorse. I was
now about to form another being of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant;
she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate and delight,
for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the
neighbourhood of man and hide himself in deserts, but she had not; and she,
who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal,
might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation.
They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived
loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater
abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form?
Frankenstein |
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 Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie: moment's hesitation. The Government would be broken finally and
completely."
"Then what more do you want?"
"The document itself," said the German bluntly.
"Ah! It is not in your possession? But you know where it is?"
"No."
"Does anyone know where it is?"
"One person--perhaps. And we are not sure of that even."
"Who is this person?"
"A girl."
Tommy held his breath.
Secret Adversary |
