| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: since the sorrow of the worthy old soul was quite pathetic, and spoke
eloquently for the unhappy cause of it.
"There was a terrible wailing at the back of the house last night,
Doctor, and I heard it again to-night, a second before you knocked.
Poor lad! It was the same when his mother died."
At the moment I paid little attention to her words, for such
beliefs are common, unfortunately; but when she was sufficiently
composed I went on to explain what I thought necessary.
And now the old lady's embarrassment took precedence of her sorrow,
and presently the truth came out:
"There's a--young lady--in his rooms, sir."
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: low ridge of hill, which terminates abruptly just above the road from
Paris to Bordeaux, so that the Rock of Angouleme is a sort of
promontory marking out the line of three picturesque valleys. The
ramparts and great gateways and ruined fortress on the summit of the
crag still remain to bear witness to the importance of this stronghold
during the Religious Wars, when Angouleme was a military position
coveted alike of Catholics and Calvinists, but its old-world strength
is a source of weakness in modern days; Angouleme could not spread
down to the Charente, and shut in between its ramparts and the steep
sides of the crag, the old town is condemned to stagnation of the most
fatal kind.
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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 The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: at dinner parties.
JACK. How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in
this horrible trouble, I can't make out. You seem to me to be
perfectly heartless.
ALGERNON. Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The
butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat
muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.
JACK. I say it's perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all,
under the circumstances.
ALGERNON. When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that
consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one
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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 The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: him, he would suddenly escape, leave her abruptly, or drop into the
gulf of meditation from which no word of hers could drag him.
Before long the reaction of the moral upon the physical condition
began its ravages,--at first imperceptibly, except to the eyes of a
loving woman following the secret thought of a husband through all its
manifestations. Often she could scarcely restrain her tears when she
saw him, after dinner, sink into an armchair by the corner of the
fireplace, and remain there, gloomy and abstracted. She noted with
terror the slow changes which deteriorated that face, once, to her
eyes, sublime through love: the life of the soul was retreating from
it; the structure remained, but the spirit was gone. Sometimes the
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