| 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: last night from the manager of the Grand Hotel.
CHASUBLE. Was the cause of death mentioned?
JACK. A severe chill, it seems.
MISS PRISM. As a man sows, so shall he reap.
CHASUBLE. [Raising his hand.] Charity, dear Miss Prism, charity!
None of us are perfect. I myself am peculiarly susceptible to
draughts. Will the interment take place here?
JACK. No. He seems to have expressed a desire to be buried in
Paris.
CHASUBLE. In Paris! [Shakes his head.] I fear that hardly points
to any very serious state of mind at the last. You would no doubt
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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 Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: could laugh at one's own enthusiasm as frankly as that enthusiasm
had been set down. And partly the humour, like the delicate
reserve of her manner, was a mask or a shelter. "I have taught
myself," she writes to me from India, "to be commonplace and like
everybody else superficially. Every one thinks I am so nice and
cheerful, so 'brave,' all the banal things that are so
comfortable to be. My mother knows me only as 'such a tranquil
child, but so strong-willed.' A tranquil child!" And she writes
again, with deeper significance: "I too have learnt the subtle
philosophy of living from moment to moment. Yes, it is a subtle
philosophy, though it appears merely an epicurean doctrine:
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: I shall take notice of in its proper place.
But I must still speak of the plague as in its height, raging even to
desolation, and the people under the most dreadful consternation,
even, as I have said, to despair. It is hardly credible to what excess
the passions of men carried them in this extremity of the distemper,
and this part, I think, was as moving as the rest. What could affect a
man in his full power of reflection, and what could make deeper
impressions on the soul, than to see a man almost naked, and got out
of his house, or perhaps out of his bed, into the street, come out of
Harrow Alley, a populous conjunction or collection of alleys, courts,
and passages in the Butcher Row in Whitechappel, - I say, what could
A Journal of the Plague Year |
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 The Call of the Wild by Jack London: the upstanding peaks which marked the backbone of the continent.
John Thornton asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid of
the wild. With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into
the wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he
pleased. Being in no haste, Indian fashion, he hunted his dinner
in the course of the day's travel; and if he failed to find it,
like the Indian, he kept on travelling, secure in the knowledge
that sooner or later he would come to it. So, on this great
journey into the East, straight meat was the bill of fare,
ammunition and tools principally made up the load on the sled, and
the time-card was drawn upon the limitless future.
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