| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: Plymouth Brother, he knows the Lord. His religion does not repose
upon a choice of logic; it is the poetry of the man's experience,
the philosophy of the history of his life. God, like a great
power, like a great shining sun, has appeared to this simple fellow
in the course of years, and become the ground and essence of his
least reflections; and you may change creeds and dogmas by
authority, or proclaim a new religion with the sound of trumpets,
if you will; but here is a man who has his own thoughts, and will
stubbornly adhere to them in good and evil. He is a Catholic, a
Protestant, or a Plymouth Brother, in the same indefeasible sense
that a man is not a woman, or a woman not a man. For he could not
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: ror, of that man she could not understand creeping
over her. She had drawn the wicker cradle close
to her feet. There was nothing in her now but the
maternal instinct and that unaccountable fear.
"Suddenly coming to himself, parched, he de-
manded a drink of water. She did not move. She
had not understood, though he may have thought
he was speaking in English. He waited, looking at
her, burning with fever, amazed at her silence and
immobility, and then he shouted impatiently,
'Water! Give me water!'
Amy Foster |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: Whether what you have told me is true or not true doesn't
concern me. I entirely decline to be mixed up in your life.
Keep your horrible secrets to yourself. They don't interest me
any more."
"Alan, they will have to interest you. This one will have to interest you.
I am awfully sorry for you, Alan. But I can't help myself.
You are the one man who is able to save me. I am forced to bring
you into the matter. I have no option. Alan, you are scientific.
You know about chemistry and things of that kind. You have made experiments.
What you have got to do is to destroy the thing that is upstairs--
to destroy it so that not a vestige of it will be left. Nobody saw this
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
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 Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: rolling forested mountains straight ahead, and a great drop to a
plain with other and distant mountains to the left. It was as
fine a panoramic view as one could imagine.
Our tents pitched, and ourselves washed and refreshed, we gave
audience to the resident chief, who had probably been waiting.
With this potentate we conversed affably, after the usual
expectoratorial ceremonies. Billy, being a mere woman, did not
always come in for this; but nevertheless she maintained what she
called her "quarantine gloves," and kept them very handy. We had
standing orders with our boys for basins of hot water to be
waiting always behind our tents. After the usual polite exchanges
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