| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: amongst a scheme of settled notions which it pained
him to feel disturbed by people's grins. Yes, peo-
ple's grins were awful. They hinted at something
wrong: but what? He could not tell; and that
stranger was obviously grinning--had come on
purpose to grin. It was bad enough on the streets,
but he had never before been outraged like this.
The stranger, unaware how near he was of hav-
ing his head laid open with a spade, said seriously:
"I am not trespassing where I stand, am I? I
fancy there's something wrong about your news.
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life,
I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,
Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,
And all to have the noble duke alive.
What know I how the world may deem of me?
For it is known we were but hollow friends.
It may be judg'd I made the duke away;
So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded
And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.
This get I by his death. Ay me, unhappy!
To be a queen, and crown'd with infamy!
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: about his business. Do you think I will spare you?
MRS WARREN [violently] Oh, I know the sort you are: no mercy for
yourself or anyone else. _I_ know. My experience has done that
for me anyhow: I can tell the pious, canting, hard, selfish woman
when I meet her. Well, keep yourself to yourself: _I_ dont want
you. But listen to this. Do you know what I would do with you
if you were a baby again? aye, as sure as there's a Heaven above
us.
VIVIE. Strangle me, perhaps.
MRS WARREN. No: I'd bring you up to be a real daughter to me,
and not what you are now, with your pride and your prejudices and
|
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 Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: manner of creatures had captured him, but that they were
human seemed evident from the fact that they had bound him.
Presently they lifted him from the floor, and half dragging,
half pushing him, they brought him out of the black
chamber through another doorway into an inner courtyard
of the temple. Here he saw his captors. There must have
been a hundred of them--short, stocky men, with great beards
that covered their faces and fell upon their hairy breasts.
The thick, matted hair upon their heads grew low over
their receding brows, and hung about their shoulders and
their backs. Their crooked legs were short and heavy, their
The Return of Tarzan |
