| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: Then I want you to say a few words to the effect that the Government
is going to reconsider the question, and that you have reason to
believe that the Canal, if completed, will be of great international
value. You know the sort of things ministers say in cases of this
kind. A few ordinary platitudes will do. In modern life nothing
produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole
world kin. Will you do that for me?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Mrs. Cheveley, you cannot be serious in making
me such a proposition!
MRS. CHEVELEY. I am quite serious.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Coldly.] Pray allow me to believe that you
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: with the arms of Soulas. Amedee gave this boy white cotton gloves and
his washing, and thirty-six francs a month to keep himself--a sum that
seemed enormous to the grisettes of Besancon: four hundred and twenty
francs a year to a child of fifteen, without counting extras! The
extras consisted in the price for which he could sell his turned
clothes, a present when Soulas exchanged one of his horses, and the
perquisite of the manure. The two horses, treated with sordid economy,
cost, one with another, eight hundred francs a year. His bills for
articles received from Paris, such as perfumery, cravats, jewelry,
patent blacking, and clothes, ran to another twelve hundred francs.
Add to this the groom, or tiger, the horses, a very superior style of
Albert Savarus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: seen in the Low-Countrymen, who have the best
mines above ground, in the world.
Above all things, good policy is to be used, that
the treasure and moneys, in a state, be not gath-
ered into few hands. For otherwise a state may
have a great stock, and yet starve. And money is
like muck, not good except it be spread. This is
done, chiefly by suppressing, or at least keeping
a strait hand, upon the devouring trades of usury,
ingrossing great pasturages, and the like.
For removing discontentments, or at least the
Essays of Francis Bacon |
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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: say again, for he sees no reason to alter his words - in speaking
of the wonderful variety of forms in the Euphorbiaceae, from the
weedy English Euphorbias, the Dog's Mercuries, and the Box, to the
prickly-stemmed Scarlet Euphorbia of Madagascar, the succulent
Cactus-like Euphorbias of the Canaries and elsewhere; the Gale-like
Phyllanthus; the many-formed Crotons; the Hemp-like Maniocs,
Physic-nuts, Castor-oils, the scarlet Poinsettia, the little pink
and yellow Dalechampia, the poisonous Manchineel, and the gigantic
Hura, or sandbox tree, of the West Indies, - all so different in
shape and size, yet all alike in their most peculiar and complex
fructification, and in their acrid milky juice,- "What if all these
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