| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: Was he really listening? Or was it a sort of soporific he took, whilst
something else worked on underneath in him? Connie did now know. She
fled up to her room, or out of doors to the wood. A kind of terror
filled her sometimes, a terror of the incipient insanity of the whole
civilized species.
But now that Clifford was drifting off to this other weirdness of
industrial activity, becoming almost a CREATURE, with a hard, efficient
shell of an exterior and a pulpy interior, one of the amazing crabs and
lobsters of the modern, industrial and financial world, invertebrates
of the crustacean order, with shells of steel, like machines, and inner
bodies of soft pulp, Connie herself was really completely stranded.
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: the sordid love of gain[5] than he, who nobly preferred to be stinted
of his dues[6] rather than snatch at the lion's share unjustly? It is
a case in point that, being pronounced by the state to be the rightful
heir to his brother's[7] wealth, he made over one half to his maternal
relatives because he saw that they were in need; and to the truth of
this assertion all Lacedaemon is witness. What, too, was his answer to
Tithraustes when the satrap offered him countless gifts if he would
but quit the country? "Tithraustes, with us it is deemed nobler for a
ruler to enrich his army than himself; it is expected of him to wrest
spoils from the enemy rather than take gifts."
[5] Or, "base covetousness."
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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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: only ask thirty-six sous for their Cicero! These nail-heads of yours
will only fetch the price of old metal--fivepence a pound."
"You call M. Gille's italics, running-hand and round-hand, 'nail-
heads,' do you? M. Gille, that used to be printer to the Emperor! And
type that costs six francs a pound! masterpieces of engraving, bought
only five years ago. Some of them are as bright yet as when they came
from the foundry. Look here!"
Old Sechard pounced upon some packets of unused sorts, and held them
out for David to see.
"I am not book-learned; I don't know how to read or write; but, all
the same, I know enough to see that M. Gille's sloping letters are the
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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 Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: smattering of science, you would have made sure I had designs upon
your life. And, observe, it is since I found you had designs upon
my own, that I have shown you most respect. You will tell me if
this speaks of a small mind." I found little to reply. In so far
as regarded myself, I believed him to mean well; I am, perhaps, the
more a dupe of his dissimulation, but I believed (and I still
believe) that he regarded me with genuine kindness. Singular and
sad fact! so soon as this change began, my animosity abated, and
these haunting visions of my master passed utterly away. So that,
perhaps, there was truth in the man's last vaunting word to me,
uttered on the second day of July, when our long voyage was at last
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