| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: friend,' said I to him, `that there is nothing I will not be
ready to do for you, and that your fortune is just as certain as
my own.' I enquired what means he intended to employ. `None
other,' said he, `than merely to open the door of her cell for
her at night, and to conduct her to the street door, where you,
of course, will be to receive her.' I asked whether there was no
danger of her being recognised as she traversed the long
galleries and the courts. He admitted that there was danger, but
that nothing could be done without some slight risk.
"Although I was delighted to find him so determined, I called M.
de T----, and informed him of the project, and of the only
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: broken his word, and bad luck would follow. He did all he could to
soothe her, and she at last seemed to be appeased; but she was not so in
truth, and was only thinking how she should punish him.
One day he took her to walk with him out of the town, and showed her
the spot where the boat was set adrift upon the wide waters. Then he
sat himself down, and said, 'I am very much tired; sit by me, I will
rest my head in your lap, and sleep a while.' As soon as he had fallen
asleep, however, she drew the ring from his finger, and crept softly
away, and wished herself and her son at home in their kingdom. And
when he awoke he found himself alone, and saw that the ring was gone
from his finger. 'I can never go back to my father's house,' said he;
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: had a great deal of imagination--she had been very proud of it.
But at the same time she had always felt that it was a dangerous
and irresponsible faculty; and now, to her sense, for the moment,
it seemed to threaten to make her sister a strange person
who should come in suddenly, as from a journey, talking of
the peculiar and possibly unpleasant things she had observed.
Charlotte's imagination took no journeys whatever;
she kept it, as it were, in her pocket, with the other furniture
of this receptacle--a thimble, a little box of peppermint,
and a morsel of court-plaster. "I don't believe she would
have any dinner--or any breakfast," said Miss Wentworth.
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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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: northern suburb; at one point near the river the trenches are
just four metres apart. This state of tension has lasted for
long months.
Unless a very big attack is contemplated, I suppose there is no
advantage in an assault; across that narrow interval we should
only get into trenches that might be costly or impossible to
hold, and so it would be for the Germans on our side. But there
is a kind of etiquette observed; loud vulgar talking on either
side of the four-metre gap leads at once to bomb throwing. And
meanwhile on both sides guns of various calibre keep up an
intermittent fire, the German guns register--I think that is the
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