| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: He saw that beside the black thing they had noticed, dry,
oblong willow-leaves were fluttering, and so he knew it was not
a forest but a settlement, but he did not wish to say so. And
in fact they had not gone twenty-five yards beyond the ditch
before something in front of them, evidently trees, showed up
black, and they heard a new and melancholy sound. Nikita had
guessed right: it was not a wood, but a row of tall willows
with a few leaves still fluttering on them here and there.
They had evidently been planted along the ditch round a
threshing-floor. Coming up to the willows, which moaned sadly
in the wind, the horse suddenly planted his forelegs above the
Master and Man |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: belong to." Suddenly he squeezed my arm. "I say, do look at that old
woman. Who is she? Why does she look like that? Is she a gambler?"
The ancient, withered creature, wearing a green satin dress, a black velvet
cloak and a white hat with purple feathers, jerked slowly, slowly up the
steps as though she were being drawn up on wires. She stared in front of
her, she was laughing and nodding and cackling to herself; her claws
clutched round what looked like a dirty boot-bag.
But just at that moment there was Mrs. Raddick again with--her--and another
lady hovering in the background. Mrs. Raddick rushed at me. She was
brightly flushed, gay, a different creature. She was like a woman who is
saying "good-bye" to her friends on the station platform, with not a minute
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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 Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: remarkable for some of those qualities which bring them either blame
or praise; and thus it is that one is reputed liberal, another
miserly, using a Tuscan term (because an avaricious person in our
language is still he who desires to possess by robbery, whilst we call
one miserly who deprives himself too much of the use of his own); one
is reputed generous, one rapacious; one cruel, one compassionate; one
faithless, another faithful; one effeminate and cowardly, another bold
and brave; one affable, another haughty; one lascivious, another
chaste; one sincere, another cunning; one hard, another easy; one
grave, another frivolous; one religious, another unbelieving, and the
like. And I know that every one will confess that it would be most
The Prince |
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 Poems by T. S. Eliot: To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use it for your closer contact?
These with a thousand small deliberations
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do,
Suspend its operations, will the weevil
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