| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: Poisons my palate and makes appetite
A loathing, not a longing.
[Goes aside.]
GUIDO. Sweet Bianca,
This common chapman wearies me with words.
I must go hence. To-morrow I will come.
Tell me the hour.
BIANCA. Come with the youngest dawn!
Until I see you all my life is vain.
GUIDO. Ah! loose the falling midnight of your hair,
And in those stars, your eyes, let me behold
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: scrimmage. Then someone obtained a newspaper and we
read a detailed account of what was happening. This
account was, as I learnt on my return, duly telegraphed to
England like much other news of a similar character. There
had been a serious revolt in Petrograd. The Semenovsky
regiment had gone over to the mutineers, who had seized the
town. The Government, however, had escaped to
Kronstadt, whence they were bombarding Petrograd with
naval guns.
This sounded fairly lively, but there was nothing to be done,
so we finished up the chess tournament we had begun on the
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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 Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Djor Kantos, son of Kantos Kan," she shot a roguish glance at her
mistress as she mentioned Djor Kantos' name, "and--oh, there were
others, many have come."
"The bath, then, Uthia," said her mistress. "And why, Uthia," she
added, "do you look thus and smile when you mention the name of
Djor Kantos?"
The slave girl laughed gaily. "It is so plain to all that he
worships you," she replied.
"It is not plain to me," said Tara of Helium. "He is the friend
of my brother, Carthoris, and so he is here much; but not to see
me. It is his friendship for Carthoris that brings him thus often
The Chessmen of Mars |
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 Pupil by Henry James: wall took, with the sound of shrill clatter, the reflexion of
lighted back windows. He had simply given himself away to a band
of adventurers. The idea, the word itself, wore a romantic horror
for him - he had always lived on such safe lines. Later it assumed
a more interesting, almost a soothing, sense: it pointed a moral,
and Pemberton could enjoy a moral. The Moreens were adventurers
not merely because they didn't pay their debts, because they lived
on society, but because their whole view of life, dim and confused
and instinctive, like that of clever colour-blind animals, was
speculative and rapacious and mean. Oh they were "respectable,"
and that only made them more immondes. The young man's analysis,
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