| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: central hall, from which radiate twelve petal-shaped courts,
each dedicated to one of the twelve months, and serving as the
repositories of statues reared in memory of the illustrious dead.
The width of the circle beneath the dome is three hundred feet,
the height of the dome is four hundred feet, and the length of
the rays is one hundred and fifty feet, and the height of their
roofs three hundred feet, so that they run into the central dome
exactly as the petals of the sunflower run into the great raised
heart. Thus the exact measurement from the centre of the central
altar to the extreme point of any one of the rounded rays would
be three hundred feet (the width of the circle itself), or a
Allan Quatermain |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: Lily felt that Rosedale was taking contemptuous note of the
neighbourhood; and before the doorstep at which she finally
paused he looked up with an air of incredulous disgust.
"This isn't the place? Some one told me you were living with Miss
Farish."
"No: I am boarding here. I have lived too long on my friends."
He continued to scan the blistered brown stone front, the windows
draped with discoloured lace, and the Pompeian decoration of the
muddy vestibule; then he looked back at her face and said with a
visible effort: "You'll let me come and see you some day?"
She smiled, recognizing the heroism of the offer to the point of
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