| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: ACT III. SCENE V. The same.
[Cry within 'hold him, hold him.' Enter Mouse
the Clown with a pot.]
MOUSE.
Hold him, hold him, hold him! here's a stir indeed.
Here came hue after the crier: and I was set close
at mother Nips' house, and there I called for three
pots of ale, as tis the manner of us courtiers. Now,
sirra, I had taken the maiden head of two of them.
Now, as I was lifting up the third to my mouth,
there came: hold him, hold him! now I could not
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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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: had a fine alto character - a sort of bleat that used to divide the
marrow in my joints - say in the wee, slack hours. That music is
now lost to us by rebuilding; another air that I remember, not
regret, was the solo of the gas-burner in the little front room; a
knickering, flighty, fleering, and yet spectral cackle. I mind it
above all on winter afternoons, late, when the window was blue and
spotted with rare rain-drops, and, looking out, the cold evening
was seen blue all over, with the lamps of Queen's and Frederick's
Street dotting it with yellow, and flaring east-ward in the
squalls. Heavens, how unhappy I have been in such circumstances -
I, who have now positively forgotten the colour of unhappiness; who
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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 Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: "I could give you ever so many other examples, but I think that
is enough. Now let us assume that I am mistaken about myself,
that I am a wretchedly boastful and incompetent person; but apart
from myself I might point to many of my contemporaries, men
remarkable for their talent and industry, who have nevertheless
died unrecognized. Are Russian navigators, chemists, physicists,
mechanicians, and agriculturists popular with the public? Do our
cultivated masses know anything of Russian artists,
sculptors, and literary men? Some old literary hack,
hard-working and talented, will wear away the doorstep of the
publishers' offices for thirty-three years, cover reams of paper,
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
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 Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: Evelina was ill, and with no one to nurse her but a man who could
not even make himself a cup of tea! Ann Eliza recalled the layer
of dust in Mr. Ramy's shop, and pictures of domestic disorder
mingled with the more poignant vision of her sister's illness. But
surely if Evelina were ill Mr. Ramy would have written. He wrote
a small neat hand, and epistolary communication was not an
insuperable embarrassment to him. The too probable alternative was
that both the unhappy pair had been prostrated by some disease
which left them powerless to summon her--for summon her they surely
would, Ann Eliza with unconscious cynicism reflected, if she or her
small economies could be of use to them! The more she strained her
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