| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: And to the common gibbet nail your head
Until the carrion crows have stripped it bare.
Better you had crossed a hungry lioness
Before you came between me and my love.
[With more pathos.]
Nay, give him back, you know not how I love him.
Here by this chair he knelt a half hour since;
'Twas there he stood, and there he looked at me;
This is the hand he kissed, and these the ears
Into whose open portals he did pour
A tale of love so musical that all
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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 White Moll by Frank L. Packard: parlors, and jabbed a needle into yourself, or took it some other
old way. I get you! What happened then?"
"It was about an hour ago," resumed Pinkie Bonn with undisturbed
complacency. "Just as I was beatin' it out of there by the cellar,
I hears some whisperin' as I was passin' one of the end doors.
Savvy? I hadn't made no noise, an' they hadn't heard me. I gets
a peek in, 'cause the door's cracked. It was French Pete an' Marny
Day. I listens. An' after about two seconds I was goin' shaky for
fear some one would come along an' I wouldn't get the whole of it.
Take it from me, Shluk, it was some goods!"
Shluker grunted noncommittingly.
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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 Exiles by Honore de Balzac: its cold gloom over the whole plot as the sun moved. Then, as now,
there was not in all Paris a more deserted spot, a more solemn or more
melancholy prospect. The noise of waters, the chanting of priests, or
the piping of the wind, were the only sounds that disturbed this
wilderness, where lovers would sometimes meet to discuss their secrets
when the church-folds and clergy were safe in church at the services.
One evening in April in the year 1308, Tirechair came home in a
remarkably bad temper. For three days past everything had been in good
order on the King's highway. Now, as an officer of the peace, nothing
annoyed him so much as to feel himself useless. He flung down his
halbert in a rage, muttered inarticulate words as he pulled off his
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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 Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: As well to hear as grant what he hath said.
My Collatine would else have come to me
When Tarquin did, but he was stay'd by thee.
'Guilty thou art of murder and of theft;
Guilty of perjury and subornation;
Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift;
Guilty of incest, that abomination:
An accessory by thine inclination
To all sins past, and all that are to come,
From the creation to the general doom.
'Mis-shapen Time, copesmate of ugly night,
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