| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: matter of marvel, if we sometimes jostle those, to whom, if
known, we would yield all respect. Surely, sir, I would rather
have taken you for a profane malignant than for such a devout
person as you prove, who reverences the great Master even in the
meanest of his servants."
"It is always my custom to do so, learned sir," answered
Dalgetty; "for in the service of the immortal Gustavus--but I
detain you from your meditations,"--his desire to speak of the
King of Sweden being for once overpowered by the necessity of his
circumstances.
"By no means, my worthy sir," said the clergyman. "What was, I
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: prey to many alarms. Before leaving the Hotel Gondreville she went
through all the rooms, but found neither her aunt nor her husband, who
had gone away without her. Frightful suspicions then tortured her
ingenuous mind. A silent witness of her husbands' torments since the
day when Madame de Vaudremont had chained him to her car, she had
confidently hoped that repentance would ere long restore her husband
to her. It was with unspeakable repugnance that she had consented to
the scheme plotted by her aunt, Madame de Lansac, and at this moment
she feared she had made a mistake.
The evening's experience had saddened her innocent soul. Alarmed at
first by the Count's look of suffering and dejection, she had become
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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 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: This masked figure that you saw, did you recognise it?"
"Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature was so doubled
up, that I could hardly swear to that," was the answer. "But if
you mean, was it Mr. Hyde?--why, yes, I think it was!" You see,
it was much of the same bigness; and it had the same quick, light
way with it; and then who else could have got in by the laboratory
door? You have not forgot, sir, that at the time of the murder he
had still the key with him? But that's not all. I don't know,
Mr. Utterson, if you ever met this Mr. Hyde?"
"Yes," said the lawyer, "I once spoke with him."
"Then you must know as well as the rest of us that there was
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
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 Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum: through the maze of scattered houses. There was the road again,
leading far away into the unknown country beyond.
"King Kik-a-bray says you must not forget his invitation," said the
brown donkey, as they passed through the opening in the wall.
"I shan't," promised Dorothy.
Perhaps no one ever beheld a more strangely assorted group than the
one which now walked along the road, through pretty green fields and
past groves of feathery pepper-trees and fragrant mimosa. Polychrome,
her beautiful gauzy robes floating around her like a rainbow cloud,
went first, dancing back and forth and darting now here to pluck a
wild-flower or there to watch a beetle crawl across the path. Toto ran
The Road to Oz |
