| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: The heat and cold and what else might displease:
I wish were now redoubled twenty fold,
So that hereafter ages, when they read
The painful traffic of my tender youth,
Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve,
As not the territories of France alone,
But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what countries else
That justly would provoke fair England's ire,
Might, at their presence, tremble and retire.
KING EDWARD.
Here, English Lords, we do proclaim a rest,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: boots. She threw one down on the ground, thrust her hand into the other,
and stared at it, sucking in her cheeks. Suddenly she bent forward, spat
on the toecap, and started polishing with a brush rooted out of her apron
pocket..."Slut of a girl! Heaven knows what infectious disease may be
breeding now in that boot. Anna must get rid of that girl--even if she has
to do without one for a bit--as soon as she's up and about again. The way
she chucked one boot down and then spat upon the other! She didn't care
whose boots she'd got hold of. SHE had no false notions of the respect due
to the master of the house." He turned away from the window and switched
his bath towel from the washstand rail, sick at heart. "I'm too sensitive
for a man--that's what's the matter with me. Have been from the beginning,
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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 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: supposed) from Henry Jekyll, who was much of a connoisseur; and
the carpets were of many plies and agreeable in colour. At this
moment, however, the rooms bore every mark of having been recently
and hurriedly ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their
pockets inside out; lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the
hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had
been burned. From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt
end of a green cheque book, which had resisted the action of the
fire; the other half of the stick was found behind the door; and
as this clinched his suspicions, the officer declared himself
delighted. A visit to the bank, where several thousand pounds
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
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 Paz by Honore de Balzac: wife was looking at her husband who was smoking a narghile, the only
form of pipe she would have suffered in that room. The portieres, held
back by cords, gave a vista through two elegant salons, one white and
gold, comparable only to that of the hotel Forbin-Janson, the other in
the style of the Renaissance. The dining-room, which had no rival in
Paris except that of the Baron de Nucingen, was at the end of a short
gallery decorated in the manner of the middle-ages. This gallery
opened on the side of the courtyard upon a large antechamber, through
which could be seen the beauties of the staircase.
The count and countess had just finished breakfast; the sky was a
sheet of azure without a cloud, April was nearly over. They had been
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