| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: lawyer all night; and if at any time he dozed over, it was but to
see it glide more stealthily through sleeping houses, or move the
more swiftly and still the more swiftly, even to dizziness,
through wider labyrinths of lamplighted city, and at every street
corner crush a child and leave her screaming. And still the
figure had no face by which he might know it; even in his dreams,
it had no face, or one that baffled him and melted before his
eyes; and thus it was that there sprang up and grew apace in the
lawyer's mind a singularly strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity
to behold the features of the real Mr. Hyde. If he could but once
set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would lighten and perhaps
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: giving tongue and sticking to the scent, he cannot see them--still as
he tears along he can interrogate the passer-by: "Hilloa there, have
you seen my hounds?" he shouts, and having at length ascertained their
whereabouts, if they are on the line, he will post himself close by,
and cheer them on, repeating turn and turn about the name of every
hound, and pitching the tone of his voice sharp or deep, soft or loud;
and besides all other familiar calls, if the chase be on a
hillside,[32] he can keep up their spirits with a constant "Well done,
good hounds! well done, good hounds! good hounds!" Or if any are at
fault, having overshot the line, he will call to them, "Back, hounds!
back, will you! try back!"
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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 Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: The plot was this:
When Prince Ching and his progressive associates in Peking
discovered that they could not vote down the Boxer princes, they
dared not openly oppose them, but they secretly decided that the
representatives of the Powers must not be massacred else the doom
of China was sealed. When they discovered that Yuan Shih-kai and
the other great viceroys had decided by stratagem to foil the
Boxers even though they must set all the imperial edicts at
naught, they decided, for the sake of the protection of the
legations and the preservation of the empire, that they would do
the same. They secretly sent supplies of food to the besieged,
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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 Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: formed up on the hard road.
"'What would you have done," he said to me, "if I had
not been here?"
"'I should have killed that man," I answered.
"'Kill him now," he said. "He will not move a limb."
"'No," I said. "You've taken my men out of my
command. I should only be your butcher if I killed him
now." Do you see what I meant?' Parnesius turned to Dan.
'Yes,'said Dan. 'It wouldn't have been fair, somehow.'
'That was what I thought,' said Parnesius. 'But
Maximus frowned. "You'll never be an Emperor," he
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