| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: a bamboo knife, a pig, food, entrails, and an oven are taboo in his
presence, as the common names for a bug and for many offices and
members of the body are taboo in the drawing-rooms of English
ladies. Special words are set apart for his leg, his face, his
hair, his belly, his eyelids, his son, his daughter, his wife, his
wife's pregnancy, his wife's adultery, adultery with his wife, his
dwelling, his spear, his comb, his sleep, his dreams, his anger,
the mutual anger of several chiefs, his food, his pleasure in
eating, the food and eating of his pigeons, his ulcers, his cough,
his sickness, his recovery, his death, his being carried on a bier,
the exhumation of his bones, and his skull after death. To address
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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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James: that should make her dead lover equal there with the others,
presented the concession to her friend as too handsome for the
case. He had never thought of himself as hard, but an exorbitant
article might easily render him so. He moved round and round this
one, but only in widening circles - the more he looked at it the
less acceptable it seemed. At the same time he had no illusion
about the effect of his refusal; he perfectly saw how it would make
for a rupture. He left her alone a week, but when at last he again
called this conviction was cruelly confirmed. In the interval he
had kept away from the church, and he needed no fresh assurance
from her to know she hadn't entered it. The change was complete
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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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: displaced ties and crumpled shirts of my companions, jarred on my
tormented nerves. . . .
It was long past midnight when we dispersed. I remember Tarvrille
coming with me into the hall, and then suggesting we should go
upstairs to see the damage. A manservant carried up two flickering
candles for us. One end of the room was gutted, curtains, hangings,
several chairs and tables were completely burnt, the panelling was
scorched and warped, three smashed windows made the candles flare
and gutter, and some scraps of broken china still lay on the puddled
floor.
As we surveyed this, Lady Tarvrille appeared, back from some party,
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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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: the closed street door inimical somehow to their benevolent
thoughts, the face of the house cruelly impenetrable. It was just
as on any other day. The unchanged daily aspect of inanimate things
is so impressive that Fyne went back into the room for a moment,
picked up the paper again, and ran his eyes over the item of news.
No doubt of it. It looked very bad. He came back to the window and
Mrs. Fyne. Tired out as she was she sat there resolute and ready
for responsibility. But she had no suggestion to offer. People do
fear a rebuff wonderfully, and all her audacity was in her thoughts.
She shrank from the incomparably insolent manner of the governess.
Fyne stood by her side, as in those old-fashioned photographs of
Chance |
