| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: music from little zithers, or grave, yellow-shawled Tunisians plucked
at the strained strings of monstrous lutes, while grinning Negroes
beat monotonously upon copper drums and, crouching upon scarlet mats,
slim turbaned Indians blew through long pipes of reed or brass and charmed--
or feigned to charm--great hooded snakes and horrible horned adders.
The harsh intervals and shrill discords of barbaric music stirred
him at times when Schubert's grace, and Chopin's beautiful sorrows,
and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell unheeded on his ear.
He collected together from all parts of the world the strangest instruments
that could be found, either in the tombs of dead nations or among the few
savage tribes that have survived contact with Western civilizations,
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: friends had faced the question of sex, along with all others, and
assigned it an honorable place in their scheme of life. Katharine felt
this beneath the roughness of his manner; and a world entrusted to the
guardianship of Mary Datchet and Mr. Basnett seemed to her a good
world, although not a romantic or beautiful place or, to put it
figuratively, a place where any line of blue mist softly linked tree
to tree upon the horizon. For a moment she thought she saw in his
face, bent now over the fire, the features of that original man whom
we still recall every now and then, although we know only the clerk,
barrister, Governmental official, or workingman variety of him. Not
that Mr. Basnett, giving his days to commerce and his spare time to
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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 Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: I did of that inclement province: the retrospect is different; and
I wonder at times if some of the horror of there events which I
must now rehearse flowed not from the foul skies and savage winds
to which we were exposed, and the agony of cold that we must
suffer.
The boat having passed by, I thought at first we should have left
the town. But no such matter. My lord continued his stay in
Albany where he had no ostensible affairs, and kept me by him, far
from my due employment, and making a pretence of occupation. It is
upon this passage I expect, and perhaps deserve, censure. I was
not so dull but what I had my own thoughts. I could not see 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 Coxon Fund by Henry James: "So they tell me--to Miss Anvoy."
I stared; I felt a certain thrill. "Why don't they send it to her
directly?"
Mrs. Saltram hung fire. "Because she's staying with Mr. and Mrs.
Mulville."
"And why should that prevent?"
Again my visitor faltered, and I began to reflect on the grotesque,
the unconscious perversity of her action. I was the only person
save George Gravener and the Mulvilles who was aware of Sir Gregory
Coxon's and of Miss Anvoy's strange bounty. Where could there have
been a more signal illustration of the clumsiness of human affairs
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