| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: to regard his happiness as beneficial for the rest of the
world and highly meritorious in himself. Our race has never
been able contentedly to suppose that the noise of its wars,
conducted by a few young gentlemen in a corner of an
inconsiderable star, does not re-echo among the courts of
Heaven with quite a formidable effect. In much the same
taste, when people find a great to-do in their own breasts,
they imagine it must have some influence in their
neighbourhood. The presence of the two lovers is so
enchanting to each other that it seems as if it must be the
best thing possible for everybody else. They are half
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: To make reply; in this I am thy peer.
I own no lord but Loxias; him I serve
And ne'er can stand enrolled as Creon's man.
Thus then I answer: since thou hast not spared
To twit me with my blindness--thou hast eyes,
Yet see'st not in what misery thou art fallen,
Nor where thou dwellest nor with whom for mate.
Dost know thy lineage? Nay, thou know'st it not,
And all unwitting art a double foe
To thine own kin, the living and the dead;
Aye and the dogging curse of mother and sire
Oedipus Trilogy |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-tree!
Lay aside your white-skin wrapper,
For the Summer-time is coming,
And the sun is warm in heaven,
And you need no white-skin wrapper!"
Thus aloud cried Hiawatha
In the solitary forest,
By the rushing Taquamenaw,
When the birds were singing gayly,
In the Moon of Leaves were singing,
And the sun, from sleep awaking,
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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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: I, I am the robber!"
Jeanne Hoogworst rose from her stool and stood erect as if the seat
she quitted were of red-hot iron. This shock was so violent for an old
maid accustomed for years to reduce herself by voluntary fasts, that
she trembled in every limb, and horrible pains were in her back. She
turned pale by degrees, and her face,--the changes in which were
difficult to decipher among its wrinkles,--became distorted while her
brother explained to her the malady of which he was the victim, and
the extraordinary situation in which he found himself.
"Louis XI. and I," he said in conclusion, "have just been lying to
each other like two pedlers of coconuts. You understand, my girl, that
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