| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: her family lately, which perhaps accounts for the lack of triviality
your lordship complains of in the buttonhole.
LORD GORING. Extraordinary thing about the lower classes in England
- they are always losing their relations.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord! They are extremely fortunate in that respect.
LORD GORING. [Turns round and looks at him. PHIPPS remains
impassive.] Hum! Any letters, Phipps?
PHIPPS. Three, my lord. [Hands letters on a salver.]
LORD GORING. [Takes letters.] Want my cab round in twenty minutes.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. [Goes towards door.]
LORD GORING. [Holds up letter in pink envelope.] Ahem! Phipps,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: barbers, whose razor was descending on a well-soaped chin, and
another who was dressing a Ramillies wig, left their occupations,
and came to the door. The citizen, in the mean time, turned a
long-favored countenance upon Robin, and answered him in a tone
of excessive anger and annoyance. His two sepulchral hems,
however, broke into the very centre of his rebuke, with most
singular effect, like a thought of the cold grave obtruding among
wrathful passions.
"Let go my garment, fellow! I tell you, I know not the man you
speak of. What! I have authority, I have--hem, hem--authority;
and if this be the respect you show for your betters, your feet
The Snow Image |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: lord. She should have enough to purify and etherealise her soul,
but not enough to refine away her heart, and raise her above all
human sympathies.'
'And am I above all human sympathies?' said I.
'No, darling; but you are making more progress towards that saintly
condition than I like; for all these two hours I have been thinking
of you and wanting to catch your eye, and you were so absorbed in
your devotions that you had not even a glance to spare for me - I
declare it is enough to make one jealous of one's Maker - which is
very wrong, you know; so don't excite such wicked passions again,
for my soul's sake.'
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
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 Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: and a babel of noises utterly alien to all that we know of the
earth and its organic life. Dormant, rudimentary senses seemed
to start into vitality within me, telling of pits and voids peopled
by floating horrors and leading to sunless crags and oceans and
teeming cities of windowless, basalt towers upon which no light
ever shone.
Secrets of the primal planet and its immemorial
aeons flashed through my brain without the aid of sight or sound,
and there were known to me things which not even the wildest of
my former dreams had ever suggested. And all the while cold fingers
of damp vapor clutched and picked at me, and that eldritch, damnable
Shadow out of Time |
