| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow,
Fan'd with the Easterne winde, turnes to a crow,
When thou holdst vp thy hand. O let me kisse
This Princesse of pure white, this seale of blisse
Hell. O spight! O hell! I see you are all bent
To set against me, for your merriment:
If you were ciuill, and knew curtesie,
You would not doe me thus much iniury.
Can you not hate me, as I know you doe,
But you must ioyne in soules to mocke me to?
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: I know she doesn't think I am educated enough to be your secretary.
She is perfectly right, too. I was fearfully idle when I was at
school, and I couldn't pass an examination now to save my life.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. My dear Gerald, examinations are of no value
whatsoever. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if
he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.
GERALD. But I am so ignorant of the world, Lord Illingworth.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. Don't be afraid, Gerald. Remember that you've
got on your side the most wonderful thing in the world - youth!
There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to
Life. The old are in life's lumber-room. But youth is the Lord of
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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 Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: A PLAY OF CHEKHOV
February 21st.
I saw Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" acted by the cast of the Art
Theatre in the First Studio. This is a little theatre holding
just over 200 people. It was of course full. It was curious to
see how complete the revolution had been in a social sense.
It was impossible to tell to what class in pre-revolutionary
days any particular member of the audience had belonged. I
was struck by the new smartness of the boy officers of the
Red Army, of whom a fair number were present. As we
waited for the curtain to rise, I thought how the mental
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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 Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: The Rue Feydeau, as idlers about town are aware, is a place of
pilgrimage for youths who for lack of a mistress bestow their ardent
affection upon the whole sex. On the first floor of the most rigidly
respectable domicile therein dwelt one of those exquisite creatures
whom it has pleased heaven to endow with the rarest and most
surpassing beauty. As it is impossible that they should all be
duchesses or queens (since there are many more pretty women in the
world than titles and thrones for them to adorn), they are content to
make a stockbroker or a banker happy at a fixed price. To this
good-natured beauty, Euphrasia by name, an unbounded ambition had led
a notary's clerk to aspire. In short, the second clerk in the office
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