| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: The friar, having stayed long enough to see every thing replaced
on a friendly footing, rose, and moved to take his leave.
Matilda told him he must come again on the morrow, for she
had a very long confession to make to him. This the friar
promised to do, and departed with the knight.
Sir Ralph, on reaching the abbey, drew his followers together, and led them
to Locksley Castle, which he found in the possession of his lieutenant;
whom he again left there with a sufficient force to hold it in safe
keeping in the king's name, and proceeded to London to report the results
of his enterprise.
Now Henry our royal king was very wroth at the earl's evasion,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: the conditions themselves each time he was re-exposed to them, so
that in fact this association, had he suffered it to become
constant, would on a certain side have but ministered to his
intenser gravity. He had made, as I have said, to create on the
premises the baseless sense of a reprieve, his three absences; and
the result of the third was to confirm the after-effect of the
second.
On his return that night - the night succeeding his last
intermission - he stood in the hall and looked up the staircase
with a certainty more intimate than any he had yet known. "He's
THERE, at the top, and waiting - not, as in general, falling back
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: doubt, but wealthy, and whom he created Baron. When, the year after,
the Vendeen spoke of Mademoiselle Emilie de Fontaine, the King replied
in his thin sharp tones, "Amicus Plato sed magis amica Natio." Then, a
few days later, he treated his "friend Fontaine" to a quatrain,
harmless enough, which he styled an epigram, in which he made fun of
these three daughters so skilfully introduced, under the form of a
trinity. Nay, if report is to be believed, the monarch had found the
point of the jest in the Unity of the three Divine Persons.
"If your Majesty would only condescend to turn the epigram into an
epithalamium?" said the Count, trying to turn the sally to good
account.
|
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 Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: approaches of intoxication. These he explained to be 'rekisite'
in the service, so that a self-respecting officer should always
appear upon parade in a condition honourable to his corps. The
most efficacious of these devices was to lace a pint of mild ate
with twopenceworth of London gin. I am pleased to hand in this
recipe to the discerning reader, who may find it useful even in
civil station; for its effect upon Mr Harker was revolutionary.
He must be helped on board his own waggon, where he proceeded to
display a spirit entirely given over to mirth and music,
alternately hooting with laughter, to which the sergeant hastened
to bear chorus, and incoherently tootling on the pipe. The man of
|
