| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: my offences being many, I would repent out the remainder of
nature: let me live, sir, in a dungeon, i' the stocks, or
anywhere, so I may live.
FIRST SOLDIER.
We'll see what may be done, so you confess freely; therefore,
once more to this Captain Dumain: you have answered to his
reputation with the duke, and to his valour: what is his honesty?
PAROLLES.
He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister: for rapes and
ravishments he parallels Nessus. He professes not keeping of
oaths; in breaking them he is stronger than Hercules. He will
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: Reg. If it be true, all vengeance comes too short
Which can pursue th' offender. How dost, my lord?
Glou. O madam, my old heart is crack'd, it's crack'd!
Reg. What, did my father's godson seek your life?
He whom my father nam'd? Your Edgar?
Glou. O lady, lady, shame would have it hid!
Reg. Was he not companion with the riotous knights
That tend upon my father?
Glou. I know not, madam. 'Tis too bad, too bad!
Edm. Yes, madam, he was of that consort.
Reg. No marvel then though he were ill affected.
King Lear |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: know how. Honestly, I feel like a queen when I go out with him.
H'm? Oh, nothing like that, girlie. I never could see that
marriage thing. Just good friends."
Gabe had been coming to Chicago four times a year for six
years. Six times four are twenty-four. And one is twenty-five.
Gabe's last visit made the twenty-fifth.
"Well, Effie," Gabe said when the evening's entertainment had
reached the restaurant stage, "this is our twenty-fifth
anniversary. It's our silver wedding, without the silver and the
wedding. We'll have a bottle of champagne. That makes it almost
legal. And then suppose we finish up by having the wedding. The
Buttered Side Down |
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 Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: to amuse myself by following them from the Boulevard du Pont aux Choux
to the Boulevard Beaumarchais. The good folk would begin by talking
about the play; then from one thing to another they would come to
their own affairs, and the mother would walk on and on, heedless of
complaints or question from the little one that dragged at her hand,
while she and her husband reckoned up the wages to be paid on the
morrow, and spent the money in a score of different ways. Then came
domestic details, lamentations over the excessive dearness of
potatoes, or the length of the winter and the high price of block
fuel, together with forcible representations of amounts owing to the
baker, ending in an acrimonious dispute, in the course of which such
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