| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: oath and the boots that he had sold for drink, recalled the
cooper, remembered his son for whom he had promised to buy a
horse by spring, sighed, and declined it.
'I don't drink, thank you kindly,' he said frowning, and sat
down on a bench near the second window.
'How's that?' asked the eldest brother.
'I just don't drink,' replied Nikita without lifting his eyes
but looking askance at his scanty beard and moustache and
getting the icicles out of them.
'It's not good for him,' said Vasili Andreevich, munching a
cracknel after emptying his glass.
Master and Man |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and
demoralising. Somebody - was it Burke? - called journalism the
fourth estate. That was true at the time, no doubt. But at the
present moment it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the
other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual
have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say
and says it. We are dominated by Journalism. In America the
President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever
and ever. Fortunately in America Journalism has carried its
authority to the grossest and most brutal extreme. As a natural
consequence it has begun to create a spirit of revolt. People are
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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 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: was forty-six years of age, the duchess, pitying his poverty, and
seeing that he stood very well at court, gave him her daughter Diane,
then in her seventeenth year, and possessing, in her own right, some
fifty or sixty thousand francs a year, not counting her future
expectations. Mademoiselle d'Uxelles thus became a duchess, and, as
her mother very well knew, she enjoyed the utmost liberty. The duke,
after obtaining the unexpected happiness of an heir, left his wife
entirely to her own devices, and went off to amuse himself in the
various garrisons of France, returning occasionally to Paris, where he
made debts which his father paid. He professed the most entire
conjugal indulgence, always giving the duchess a week's warning of his
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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 Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: heavy winter cloak, &c., she looked so like herself that I knew not
how to bear it. I was particularly glad to see her beautiful black
hair, unstinted still, and unconcealed in its glossy luxuriance.
'Mamma has left off her widow's cap in honour of uncle's marriage,'
observed Arthur, reading my looks with a child's mingled simplicity
and quickness of observation. Mamma looked grave and Mrs. Maxwell
shook her head. 'And aunt Maxwell is never going to leave off
hers,' persisted the naughty boy; but when he saw that his pertness
was seriously displeasing and painful to his aunt, he went and
silently put his arm round her neck, kissed her cheek, and withdrew
to the recess of one of the great bay-windows, where he quietly
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
