| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: does - well, he does nothing, which I am afraid our pretty American
visitor here thinks very wrong of anybody, and I don't know that he
cares much for the subjects in which you are so interested, dear
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Do you think, Caroline, that Lord Illingworth is
interested in the Housing of the Poor?
LADY CAROLINE. I should fancy not at all, Jane.
LADY HUNSTANTON. We all have our different tastes, have we not?
But Lord Illingworth has a very high position, and there is nothing
he couldn't get if he chose to ask for it. Of course, he is
comparatively a young man still, and he has only come to his title
within - how long exactly is it, Caroline, since Lord Illingworth
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: scene, to wait, even as the water and sky and the windless trees
were waiting....
And then by imperceptible degrees there grew in Scrope's mind
the persuasion that he was in the presence of the living God.
This time there was no vision of angels nor stars, no snapping of
bow-strings, no throbbing of the heart nor change of scene, no
magic and melodramatic drawing back of the curtain from the
mysteries; the water and the bridge, the ragged black trees, and
a distant boat that broke the silvery calm with an arrow of black
ripples, all these things were still before him. But God was
there too. God was everywhere about him. This persuasion was over
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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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: beneath the shadow of the trees, and now through open spaces of
garden planted with lovely flowers, till at last we came to the
gates of the place where the royal dead are laid to rest. Now in
front of these gates was an open space of turf on which the
moonlight shone brightly, and in the centre of this space lay
something white, shaped like a woman. Here Montezuma halted and
looked at the gates, then said:
'These gates opened four days since for Papantzin, my sister; how
long, I wonder, will pass before they open for me?'
As he spoke, the white shape upon the grass which I had seen and he
had not seen, stirred like an awakening sleeper. As the snow shape
Montezuma's Daughter |
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 Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: reliable and willing--form a Society here for three months--wait
upon ourselves and one another--live cheerfully and socially--and
see what happens."
I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot,
and went into her plan with the greatest ardor.
We were then in the third week of November; but, we took our
measures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the friends in
whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month
unexpired, when our party all came down together merrily, and
mustered in the haunted house.
I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while
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