| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: you back to me, and what do you want with me?"
"I wish to tell you that though remaining invisible to your
eyes, I have not lost sight of you."
"You know what I have done?"
"I can relate to you, day by day, your actions from your
entrance to the service of the cardinal to this evening."
A smile of incredulity passed over the pale lips of Milady.
"Listen! It was you who cut off the two diamond studs from
the shoulder of the Duke of Buckingham; it was you had the
Madame Bonacieux carried off; it was you who, in love with
De Wardes and thinking to pass the night with him, opened
 The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: you'll go alone. I prefer to stay here, in spite of the coming storm,
and wait for the horse you can send me from the chateau. You've played
me a trick, Sucy. We were to have had a nice little hunt not far from
Cassan, and beaten the coverts I know. Instead of that, you have kept
me running like a hare since four o'clock this morning, and all I've
had for breakfast is a cup of milk. Now, if you ever have a petition
before the Court, I'll make you lose it, however just your claim."
The poor discouraged huntsman sat down on a stone that supported the
signpost, relieved himself of his gun and his gamebag, and heaved a
long sigh.
"France! such are thy deputies!" exclaimed Colonel de Sucy, laughing.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: humanity have never taken their rise amid the chopped logic of schools;
they have never drawn their vitality from a series of purely intellectual
and abstract inductions. They have arisen always through the action of
widely spread material and spiritual conditions, creating widespread human
needs; which, pressing upon the isolated individuals, awakens at last
continuous, if often vague and uncertain, social movement in a given
direction. Mere intellectual comprehension may guide, retard, or
accelerate the great human movements; it has never created them. It may
even be questioned whether those very leaders, who have superficially
appeared to create and organise great and successful social movements, have
themselves, in most cases, perhaps in any, fully understood in all their
|
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 Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: wine and ale; and bid the cooks add what they
hastily can to our evening meal; and let it be put
on the board when those strangers are ready to
share it. Say to them, Hundebert, that Cedric
would himself bid them welcome, but he is under a
vow never to step more than three steps from the
dais of his own hall to meet any who shares not the
blood of Saxon royalty. Begone! see them carefully
tended; let them not say in their pride, the
Saxon churl has shown at once his poverty and his
avarice.''
 Ivanhoe |