| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: "Oh, it isn't the loneliness I care about," said Reginald, and he stumped
his cigarette savagely on the green ash-tray. "I could stand any amount of
it, used to like it even. It's the idea of--" Suddenly, to his horror, he
felt himself blushing.
"Roo-coo-coo-coo! Roo-coo-coo-coo!"
Anne jumped up. "Come and say good-bye to my doves," she said. "They've
been moved to the side veranda. You do like doves, don't you, Reggie?"
"Awfully," said Reggie, so fervently that as he opened the French window
for her and stood to one side, Anne ran forward and laughed at the doves
instead.
To and fro, to and fro over the fine red sand on the floor of the dove
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: it is thinner, and more vivid, and warmer immediately after leaving the
heart, in other words, when in the arteries, than it was a short time
before passing into either, in other words, when it was in the veins; and
if attention be given, it will be found that this difference is very
marked only in the neighborhood of the heart; and is not so evident in
parts more remote from it. In the next place, the consistency of the coats
of which the arterial vein and the great artery are composed,
sufficiently shows that the blood is impelled against them with more
force than against the veins. And why should the left cavity of the heart
and the great artery be wider and larger than the right cavity and the
arterial vein, were it not that the blood of the venous artery, having
Reason Discourse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: bodies of fish, innumerable fish, fleeing towards shore. The
farther you advance, the more thickly you will feel them come;
and above you and around you, to right and left, others will leap
and fall so swiftly as to daze the sight, like intercrossing
fountain-jets of fluid silver. The gulls fly lower about you,
circling with sinister squeaking cries;--perhaps for an instant
your feet touch in the deep something heavy, swift, lithe, that
rushes past with a swirling shock. Then the fear of the Abyss,
the vast and voiceless Nightmare of the Sea, will come upon you;
the silent panic of all those opaline millions that flee
glimmering by will enter into you also...
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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 The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: downward toward the center, where a big hole had been
made in the ocean -- a hole with walls of water that
were kept in place by the rapid whirling of the air.
The boat in which Trot and Cap'n Bill were riding was
just on the outer edge of this saucer-like slant, and
the old sailor knew very well that unless he could
quickly force the little craft away from the rushing
current they would soon be drawn into the great black
hole that yawned in the middle. So he exerted all his
might and pulled as he had never pulled before. He
pulled so hard that the left oar snapped in two and
The Scarecrow of Oz |
