| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: QUEEN.
Great King of England and my gracious lord,
The mutual conference that my mind hath had,
By day, by night, waking and in my dreams,
In courtly company or at my beads,
With you, mine alder-liefest sovereign,
Makes me the bolder to salute my king
With ruder terms, such as my wit affords
And over-joy of heart doth minister.
KING.
Her sight did ravish, but her grace in speech,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: "Here we are on this famous lake," said James Starr. "It has
been compared to an eel on account of its length and windings:
and justly so. They say that it never freezes.
I know nothing about that, but what we want to think of is,
that here are the scenes of the adventures in the Lady of
the Lake. I believe, if friend Jack looked about him carefully,
he might see, still gliding over the surface of the water,
the shade of the slender form of sweet Ellen Douglas."
"To be sure, Mr. Starr," replied Jack; "why should I not?
I may just as well see that pretty girl on the waters of Loch Katrine,
as those ugly ghosts on Loch Malcolm in the coal pit."
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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 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: from the rear she noticed that Jude's hand sought Sue's as they stood,
the two standing close together so as to conceal, as they supposed,
this tacit expression of their mutual responsiveness.
"Silly fools--like two children!" Arabella whispered to herself morosely,
as she rejoined her companions, with whom she preserved a preoccupied silence.
Anny meanwhile had jokingly remarked to Vilbert on Arabella's hankering
interest in her first husband.
"Now," said the physician to Arabella, apart; "do you want
anything such as this, Mrs. Cartlett? It is not compounded
out of my regular pharmacopoeia, but I am sometimes asked
for such a thing." He produced a small phial of clear liquid.
Jude the Obscure |
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 Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: Halley's comets, for instance - it warn't anything but just a flash
and a vanish, you see. You couldn't rightly call it a race. It
was as if the comet was a gravel-train and I was a telegraph
despatch. But after I got outside of our astronomical system, I
used to flush a comet occasionally that was something LIKE. WE
haven't got any such comets - ours don't begin. One night I was
swinging along at a good round gait, everything taut and trim, and
the wind in my favor - I judged I was going about a million miles a
minute - it might have been more, it couldn't have been less - when
I flushed a most uncommonly big one about three points off my
starboard bow. By his stern lights I judged he was bearing about
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