| 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: are trying to solve it by amusing the slaves.
LADY HUNSTANTON. Certainly, a great deal may be done by means of
cheap entertainments, as you say, Lord Illingworth. Dear Dr.
Daubeny, our rector here, provides, with the assistance of his
curates, really admirable recreations for the poor during the
winter. And much good may be done by means of a magic lantern, or
a missionary, or some popular amusement of that kind.
LADY CAROLINE. I am not at all in favour of amusements for the
poor, Jane. Blankets and coals are sufficient. There is too much
love of pleasure amongst the upper classes as it is. Health is
what we want in modern life. The tone is not healthy, not healthy
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: "Are you really he?" she murmured.
"I am he," he answered.
She laid her hand in his and drew him toward the parapet which
overhung the valley.
"Shall we go down together," she asked him, "into that marvellous
country; shall we see it together, as if with the self-same eyes,
and tell each other in the same words all that we think and feel?"
"So," he replied, "have I hoped and dreamed."
"What?" she asked, with rising joy. "Then you, too, have looked
for me?"
"All my life."
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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 Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: to him.
Sara Lee sat in her room at Morley's Hotel and looked out at the life of
London - policemen with chin straps; schoolboys in high silk hats and
Eton suits, the hats generally in disreputable condition; clerks dressed
as men at home dressed for Easter Sunday church; and men in uniforms.
Only a fair sprinkling of these last, in those early days. On the first
afternoon there was a military funeral. A regiment of Scots, in kilts,
came swinging down from the church of St. Martin in the Fields, tall and
wonderful men, grave and very sad. Behind them, on a gun carriage, was
the body of their officer, with the British flag over the casket and his
sword and cap on the top.
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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 Intentions by Oscar Wilde: drawing-book which he used at school is still extant, and displays
great talent and natural feeling. Indeed, painting was the first
art that fascinated him. It was not till much later that he sought
to find expression by pen or poison.
Before this, however, he seems to have been carried away by boyish
dreams of the romance and chivalry of a soldier's life, and to have
become a young guardsman. But the reckless dissipated life of his
companions failed to satisfy the refined artistic temperament of
one who was made for other things. In a short time he wearied of
the service. 'Art,' he tells us, in words that still move many by
their ardent sincerity and strange fervour, 'Art touched her
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