| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,
Thy mother took into her blameful bed
Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock
Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,
And never of the Nevils' noble race.
WARWICK.
But that the guilt of murther bucklers thee
And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,
Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,
And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,
I would, false murtherous coward, on thy knee
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: the play, and the puppets in their dalliance, Hamlet 'catches the
conscience' of the King, and drives the wretched man in terror from
his throne, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz see no more in his conduct
than a rather painful breach of Court etiquette. That is as far as
they can attain to in 'the contemplation of the spectacle of life
with appropriate emotions.' They are close to his very secret and
know nothing of it. Nor would there be any use in telling them.
They are the little cups that can hold so much and no more.
Towards the close it is suggested that, caught in a cunning spring
set for another, they have met, or may meet, with a violent and
sudden death. But a tragic ending of this kind, though touched by
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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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: child."
And Margret would remember the greasy Irishman who had tucked
them under his arm, and flung them into a cart, her blood growing
hotter in her veins.
It was the same through all the house; there was not a niche in
the bare rooms that did not recall a something gone,--something
that should return. She willed that, that evening, standing by
the dim fire. What women will, whose eyes are slow, attentive,
still, as this Margret's, usually comes to pass.
The red fire-glow suited her; another glow, warming her floating
fancy, mingled with it, giving her every-day purpose the trait of
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: EDINBURGH, JANUARY 1876.
MY DEAR KATHARINE, - The prisoner reserved his defence. He has
been seedy, however; principally sick of the family evil,
despondency; the sun is gone out utterly; and the breath of the
people of this city lies about as a sort of damp, unwholesome fog,
in which we go walking with bowed hearts. If I understand what is
a contrite spirit, I have one; it is to feel that you are a small
jar, or rather, as I feel myself, a very large jar, of pottery work
rather MAL REUSSI, and to make every allowance for the potter (I
beg pardon; Potter with a capital P.) on his ill-success, and
rather wish he would reduce you as soon as possible to potsherds.
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