| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: tomorrow, send them by a messenger. Come, you must run along. . .
. The passenger train will be in directly; don't miss it,
darling."
"Very well."
"Oh, how sorry I am to let you go!" said Olga Ivanovna, and tears
came into her eyes. "And why did I promise that telegraph clerk,
like a silly?"
Dymov hurriedly drank a glass of tea, took a cracknel, and,
smiling gently, went to the station. And the caviare, the cheese,
and the white salmon were eaten by the two dark gentlemen and the
fat actor.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: The last performance began. The first quarrel seemed to lack its
wonted bitterness. Punch appeared halfhearted, and Judy was
simply walking through.
I glanced at the girl and stroked her pig-tail- my pig-tail.
"Wootle," I said encouragingly. " Wootle, wootle."
She started at my touch. Then she seemed to remember, and flung
herself into her part with abandon.
When the ghost was on, I had a brilliant idea.
"Leave the hangman out," I whispered, "and put up Judy instead.
We'll have a reconciliation to finish with."
And so to Punch, sobered, shaking, cowering in the corner, with
The Brother of Daphne |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: declare herself, but she was discreet; she thought of her country and kingdom,
and of the many persons she would have to reign over.
"He is a wise man," said she to herself--"It is well; and he dances
delightfully--that is also good; but has he solid knowledge? That is just as
important! He must be examined."
So she began, by degrees, to question him about the most difficult things she
could think of, and which she herself could not have answered; so that the
shadow made a strange face.
"You cannot answer these questions?" said the princess.
"They belong to my childhood's learning," said the shadow. "I really believe
my shadow, by the door there, can answer them!"
Fairy Tales |
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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: useful servant, and well deserve all the favours he had already
conferred upon me, or might do for the future."
The reader may please to observe, that, in the last article of
the recovery of my liberty, the emperor stipulates to allow me a
quantity of meat and drink sufficient for the support of 1724
Lilliputians. Some time after, asking a friend at court how they
came to fix on that determinate number, he told me that his
majesty's mathematicians, having taken the height of my body by
the help of a quadrant, and finding it to exceed theirs in the
proportion of twelve to one, they concluded from the similarity
of their bodies, that mine must contain at least 1724 of theirs,
Gulliver's Travels |
