| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: reserved for the period when I was returning to the paths of
virtue. I now fear that I shall have hardly fortitude enough
left to recount the most disastrous circumstances that ever
occurred to any man.
"I waited upon the governor, as I had settled with Manon, to
procure his consent to the ceremony of our marriage. I should
have avoided speaking to him or to any other person upon the
subject, if I had imagined that his chaplain, who was the only
minister in the town, would have performed the office for me
without his knowledge; but not daring to hope that he would do so
privately, I determined to act ingenuously in the matter.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?
O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake:
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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 Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: childless still. [Hiding her feelings with a trivial laugh.]
Besides, my dear Windermere, how on earth could I pose as a mother
with a grown-up daughter? Margaret is twenty-one, and I have never
admitted that I am more than twenty-nine, or thirty at the most.
Twenty-nine when there are pink shades, thirty when there are not.
So you see what difficulties it would involve. No, as far as I am
concerned, let your wife cherish the memory of this dead, stainless
mother. Why should I interfere with her illusions? I find it hard
enough to keep my own. I lost one illusion last night. I thought
I had no heart. I find I have, and a heart doesn't suit me,
Windermere. Somehow it doesn't go with modern dress. It makes one
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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 A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: the pale flying deer. It was now used as the council-room, and on
the centre table were lying the red portfolios of the ministers,
stamped with the gold tulips of Spain, and with the arms and
emblems of the house of Hapsburg.
The little Dwarf looked in wonder all round him, and was half-
afraid to go on. The strange silent horsemen that galloped so
swiftly through the long glades without making any noise, seemed to
him like those terrible phantoms of whom he had heard the charcoal-
burners speaking - the Comprachos, who hunt only at night, and if
they meet a man, turn him into a hind, and chase him. But he
thought of the pretty Infanta, and took courage. He wanted to find
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