| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: A running noose entwined about her neck.
But when he saw her, with a maddened roar
He loosed the cord; and when her wretched corpse
Lay stretched on earth, what followed--O 'twas dread!
He tore the golden brooches that upheld
Her queenly robes, upraised them high and smote
Full on his eye-balls, uttering words like these:
"No more shall ye behold such sights of woe,
Deeds I have suffered and myself have wrought;
Henceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see
Those ye should ne'er have seen; now blind to those
Oedipus Trilogy |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: apartment. Ere I could draw the curtain to see what the matter
was, the figure of a little woman passed between the bed and the
fire. The back of this form was turned to me, and I could
observe, from the shoulders and neck, it was that of an old
woman, whose dress was an old-fashioned gown, which I think
ladies call a sacque--that is, a sort of robe completely loose in
the body, but gathered into broad plaits upon the neck and
shoulders, which fall down to the ground, and terminate in a
species of train.
"I thought the intrusion singular enough, but never harboured for
a moment the idea that what I saw was anything more than the
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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 Crito by Plato: awakening me?
CRITO: I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be in such great
trouble and unrest as you are--indeed I should not: I have been watching
with amazement your peaceful slumbers; and for that reason I did not awake
you, because I wished to minimize the pain. I have always thought you to
be of a happy disposition; but never did I see anything like the easy,
tranquil manner in which you bear this calamity.
SOCRATES: Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to be
repining at the approach of death.
CRITO: And yet other old men find themselves in similar misfortunes, and
age does not prevent them from repining.
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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 At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: of the application for a divorce, laid down the lines of it, almost
argued the case; he offered to be at all the charges, to see the
lawyers, the pleaders, the judges, to move heaven and earth. Madame de
Sommervieux was frightened, she refused her father's services, said
she would not be separated from her husband even if she were ten times
as unhappy, and talked no more about her sorrows. After being
overwhelmed by her parents with all the little wordless and consoling
kindnesses by which the old couple tried in vain to make up to her for
her distress of heart, Augustine went away, feeling the impossibility
of making a superior mind intelligible to weak intellects. She had
learned that a wife must hide from every one, even from her parents,
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