| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: O come and fill His sepulchre with flowers.'
Ah, God! Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours
Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain,
The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear.
Poem: Rome Unvisited
I.
The corn has turned from grey to red,
Since first my spirit wandered forth
From the drear cities of the north,
And to Italia's mountains fled.
And here I set my face towards home,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: pose at first sight? If work were to remain what
most work is now, no doubt it would be very hard to
induce people to undertake it except from fear of
destitution. But there is no reason why work should
remain the dreary drudgery in horrible conditions
that most of it is now.[43] If men had to be tempted to
work instead of driven to it, the obvious interest of
the community would be to make work pleasant. So
long as work is not made on the whole pleasant, it
cannot be said that anything like a good state of
society has been reached. Is the painfulness of work
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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 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: the country custom to meet thus, and nothing else had occurred to him.
Arabella had been met in the same way, unfortunately, and it might not
seem respectable to a dear girl like Sue. However, it could not be
helped now, and he moved towards the point a few minutes before the hour,
under the glimmer of the newly lighted lamps.
The broad street was silent, and almost deserted, although it was not late.
He saw a figure on the other side, which turned out to be hers, and they both
converged towards the crossmark at the same moment. Before either had reached
it she called out to him:
"I am not going to meet you just there, for the first time in my life!
Come further on."
Jude the Obscure |
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 Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Laughing at life and the world they sought her,
And out she swung to the silvering bay.
Then off they flew on their roystering way,
And the keen moon fired the light foam flying
Up from the flood where the faint stars play,
And the bones of the brave in the wave are lying.
'T was a king's fair son with a king's fair daughter,
And full three hundred beside, they say, --
Revelling on for the lone, cold slaughter
So soon to seize them and hide them for aye;
But they danced and they drank and their souls grew gay,
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