| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: is a question of weeks. Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it;
yes, sir, I used to like it. I sometimes think if we knew all, we
should be more glad to get away."
"Jekyll is ill, too," observed Utterson. "Have you seen him?"
But Lanyon's face changed, and he held up a trembling hand.
"I wish to see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll," he said in a loud,
unsteady voice. "I am quite done with that person; and I beg that
you will spare me any allusion to one whom I regard as dead."
"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson; and then after a considerable
pause, "Can't I do anything?" he inquired. "We are three very old
friends, Lanyon; we shall not live to make others."
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: Mysterious link by which many interests were in some way connected
with the Tuileries, and safe as a confessor, he sometimes knew
everything and sometimes nothing; and, in addition to all these
functions came that of saying for the minister those things that a
minister cannot say for himself. In short, with his political
Hephaestion the minister might dare to be himself; to take off his wig
and his false teeth, lay aside his scruples, put on his slippers,
unbutton his conscience, and give way to his trickery. However, it was
not all a bed of roses for des Lupeaulx; he flattered and advised his
master, forced to flatter in order to advise, to advise while
flattering, and disguise the advice under the flattery. All
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: past has bound the two halves of humanity together? What if, though the
stern and unlovely manual labours of the past have never affected her
attractiveness for the male of her own society, nor his for her; yet the
performance by woman of intellectual labours, or complex and interesting
manual labour, and her increased intelligence and width, should render the
male objectionable to her, and the woman undesirable to the male; so that
the very race itself might become extinct through the dearth of sexual
affection? What, and if, the woman ceases to value the son she bears, and
to feel desire for and tenderness to the man who begets him; and the man to
value and desire the woman and her offspring? Would not such a result
exceed, or at least equal, in its evil to humanity, anything which could
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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 Sportsman by Xenophon: off in the clutches of these birds, in the act of crossing some slope
or bare hillside. When they are bigger they have the hounds after them
to hunt them down and make away with them. The fleetest-footed would
appear to be those of the low marsh lands. The vagabond kind[31]
addicted to every sort of ground are difficult to hunt, for they know
the short cuts, running chiefly up steeps or across flats, over
inequalities unequally, and downhill scarcely at all.
[29] Or, "shifts her ground."
[30] Or, "in their terror not of dogs only, but of eagles, since up to
a year old they are liable to be seized by these birds of prey
while crossing some bottom or bare ground, while if bigger . . ."
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