| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: has one, is simply to be always looking for temptations. There are
not nearly enough. I sometimes pass a whole day without coming
across a single one. It is quite dreadful. It makes one so
nervous about the future.
LADY HUNSTANTON. [Shakes her fan at him.] I don't know how it is,
dear Lord Illingworth, but everything you have said to-day seems to
me excessively immoral. It has been most interesting, listening to
you.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. All thought is immoral. Its very essence is
destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing
survives being thought of.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: bell. Hammond knew there were business pals of his sitting at the little
hall tables having a drink before dinner. But he wasn't going to risk
interruption; he looked neither to the right nor the left. They could
think what they pleased. If they didn't understand, the more fools they--
and he stepped out of the lift, unlocked the door of their room, and
shepherded Janey in. The door shut. Now, at last, they were alone
together. He turned up the light. The curtains were drawn; the fire
blazed. He flung his hat on to the huge bed and went towards her.
But--would you believe it!--again they were interrupted. This time it was
the porter with the luggage. He made two journeys of it, leaving the door
open in between, taking his time, whistling through his teeth in the
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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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: Germany, seizing upon modern science and modern appliances, has
created for France and the spirit of mankind.
He talked chiefly of the strangeness of this confounded war. It
was exactly like a sanitary engineer speaking of the unexpected
difficulties of some particularly nasty inundation. He made
little stiff horizontal gestures with his hands. First one had
to build a dam and stop the rush of it, so; then one had to
organise the push that would send it back. He explained the
organisation of the push. They had got an organisation now that
was working out most satisfactorily. Had I seen a sector? I had
seen the sector of Soissons. Yes, but that was not now an
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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 A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: expedient was put into his head by the famous Salmanaazor, a
native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to London,
above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that
in his country, when any young person happened to be put to
death, the executioner sold the carcass to persons of quality, as
a prime dainty; and that, in his time, the body of a plump girl
of fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the
Emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty's prime minister of
state, and other great mandarins of the court in joints from the
gibbet, at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that
if the same use were made of several plump young girls in this
A Modest Proposal |
