| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: TARLETON. Hold your tongue.
HYPATIA. Keep your temper.
PERCIVAL. _[coming between them]_ Lord Summerhays: youll join me,
I'm sure, in pointing out to both father and daughter that they have
now reached that very common stage in family life at which anything
but a blow would be an anti-climax. Do you seriously want to beat
Patsy, Mr Tarleton?
TARLETON. Yes. I want to thrash the life out of her. If she doesnt
get out of my reach, I'll do it. _[He sits down and grasps the
writing table to restrain himself]._
HYPATIA. _[coolly going to him and leaning with her breast on his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: prognostications of things that fell after; and so they did full
oftentimes, and proffered their heads to-wedde, but if it would
fall as they said. But natheles, therefore should not a man put
his belief in such things, but always have full trust and belief in
God our sovereign Lord.
This isle of Chana the Saracens have won and hold. In that isle be
many lions and many other wild beasts. And there be rats in that
isle as great as hounds here; and men take them with great
mastiffs, for cats may not take them. In this isle and many other
men bury not no dead men, for the heat is there so great, that in a
little time the flesh will consume from the bones.
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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 A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: rugs to wrap her up against the cold, notwithstanding her
protests, positive orders, and even struggles, as Valery
afterward related to me. 'How could I,' he remonstrated with
her, 'go to meet the blessed soul of my late master if I let any
harm come to you while there's a spark of life left in my body?'
When they reached home at last the poor old man was stiff and
speechless from exposure, and the coachman was in not much better
plight, though he had the strength to drive round to the stables
himself. To my reproaches for venturing out at all in such
weather, she answered, characteristically, that she could not
bear the thought of abandoning me to my cheerless solitude. It
A Personal Record |
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 Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: the light of Christ, for the dense cloud of darkness, that
enveloped him, still bound the eyes of his heart. Howbeit he no
longer honoured his temple-keepers, nor would he keep feasts, nor
make drink offerings to his idols, but his mind was tossed
between two opinions. On the one hand, he poured scorn on the
impotence of his gods; on the other, he dreaded the strictness of
the profession of the Gospel, and was hardly to be torn from his
evil ways, being completely in slavery to the pleasures of the
body, and like a captive drawn towards sinful lusts, and being
drunken, as saith Esay, but not with wine, and led as it were
with the bridle of evil habit.
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