| 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: imagined that your motive for bestowing your friendship upon me
was very different indeed from the one you now betray.' With the
greatest effrontery he acknowledged that he had been always of
the same mind, and that his sister having once sacrificed her
virtue, though it might be to the man she most loved, he would
never have consented to a reconciliation with her, but with the
hope of deriving some advantage from her past misconduct.
"It was easy to see that we had been hitherto his dupes.
Notwithstanding the disgust with which his proposition inspired
me, still, as I felt that I had occasion for his services, I
said, with apparent complacency, that we ought only to entertain
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah’s
He laughed like an irresponsible foetus.
His laughter was submarine and profound
Like the old man of the seats
Hidden under coral islands
Where worried bodies of drowned men drift down in the green silence,
Dropping from fingers of surf.
I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chair,
Or grinning over a screen
With seaweed in its hair.
I heard the beat of centaurs’ hoofs over the hard turf
Prufrock/Other Observations |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: PHIPPS. I will speak to the florist, my lord. She has had a loss in
her family lately, which perhaps accounts for the lack of triviality
your lordship complains of in the buttonhole.
LORD GORING. Extraordinary thing about the lower classes in England
- they are always losing their relations.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord! They are extremely fortunate in that respect.
LORD GORING. [Turns round and looks at him. PHIPPS remains
impassive.] Hum! Any letters, Phipps?
PHIPPS. Three, my lord. [Hands letters on a salver.]
LORD GORING. [Takes letters.] Want my cab round in twenty minutes.
PHIPPS. Yes, my lord. [Goes towards door.]
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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 Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: distress fell. For nearly half a year, their lawn, their verandah,
sometimes their rooms, were cumbered with the sick and dying, their
ears were filled with the complaints of suffering humanity, their
time was too short for the multiplicity of pitiful duties. In Mrs.
de Coetlogon, and her helper, Miss Taylor, the merit of this
endurance was perhaps to be looked for; in a man of the colonel's
temper, himself painfully suffering, it was viewed with more
surprise, if with no more admiration. Doubtless all had their
reward in a sense of duty done; doubtless, also, as the days
passed, in the spectacle of many traits of gratitude and patience,
and in the success that waited on their efforts. Out of a hundred
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