| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied.
What more can one want? Yes, Dorian, you will always be fond of me.
I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit."
"What nonsense you talk, Harry!" cried the lad, taking a light from
a fire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table.
"Let us go down to the theatre. When Sibyl comes on the stage you will
have a new ideal of life. She will represent something to you that you
have never known."
"I have known everything," said Lord Henry, with a tired
look in his eyes, "but I am always ready for a new emotion.
I am afraid, however, that, for me at any rate, there is
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: taken part in a conversation illuminated by any ideas. All
was then true that she had heard and dreamed of gentlemen;
they were a race apart, like deities knowing good and evil.
And then there burst upon her soul a divine thought, hope's
glorious sunrise: since she could understand, since it seemed
that she too, even she, could interest this sorrowful Apollo,
might she not learn? or was she not learning? Would not her
soul awake and put forth wings? Was she not, in fact, an
enchanted princess, waiting but a touch to become royal? She
saw herself transformed, radiantly attired, but in the most
exquisite taste: her face grown longer and more refined; her
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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 Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: whom he found in his salon, laughing with a company of friends to whom
he had already recounted the tale.
"Monsieur," said the prince of travellers, darting a savage glance at
his enemy, "you are a scoundrel and a blackguard; and under pain of
being thought a turn-key,--a species of being far below a galley-
slave,--you will give me satisfaction for the insult you dared to
offer me in sending me to a man whom you knew to be a lunatic! Do you
hear me, Monsieur Vernier, dyer?"
Such was the harangue which Gaudissart prepared as he went along, as a
tragedian makes ready for his entrance on the scene.
"What!" cried Vernier, delighted at the presence of an audience, "do
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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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: expect to hear the keeper say, "Ah, that is Charles, we will play
him and put him back, if you please, sir; for the master is very
fond of him,"--or, "Now you have got hold of Edward; let us land him
and keep him; he is three years old this month, and just ready to be
eaten." It would seem like taking trout out of cold storage.
Who could find any pleasure in angling for the tame carp in the
fish-pool of Fontainebleau? They gather at the marble steps, those
venerable, courtly fish, to receive their rations; and there are
veterans among them, in ancient livery, with fringes of green moss
on their shoulders, who could tell you pretty tales of being fed by
the white hands of maids of honour, or even of nibbling their crumbs
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