| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: SIMONE. My lord, of all the gracious courtesies
That you have showered on my barren house
This is the highest.
Bianca, fetch my sword.
Thrust back that stool and table. We must have
An open circle for our match at arms,
And good Bianca here shall hold the torch
Lest what is but a jest grow serious.
BIANCA [To Guido]. Oh! kill him, kill him!
SIMONE. Hold the torch, Bianca.
[They begin to fight.]
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: They listened, and the knocking came again. No servant was kept
in the house, and if the summons were to be responded to one of them
would have to do it in person. "I'll open a window," said Jude.
"Whoever it is cannot be expected to be let in at this time."
He accordingly went into his bedroom and lifted the sash.
The lonely street of early retiring workpeople was empty from end
to end save of one figure--that of a woman walking up and down
by the lamp a few yards off.
"Who's there?" he asked.
"Is that Mr. Fawley?" came up from the woman, in a voice which was
unmistakably Arabella's.
Jude the Obscure |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: With Phaedra's ghost, a foul incestuous pair.
There Laodamia, with Evadne, moves,
Unhappy both, but loyal in their loves:
Caeneus, a woman once, and once a man,
But ending in the sex she first began.
Not far from these Phoenician Dido stood,
Fresh from her wound, her bosom bath'd in blood;
Whom when the Trojan hero hardly knew,
Obscure in shades, and with a doubtful view,
(Doubtful as he who sees, thro' dusky night,
Or thinks he sees, the moon's uncertain light,)
Aeneid |
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 Time Machine by H. G. Wells: fall back one by one into the parent body. As these catastrophes
occur, the sun will blaze with renewed energy; and it may be that
some inner planet had suffered this fate. Whatever the reason,
the fact remains that the sun was very much hotter than we know
it.
`Well, one very hot morning--my fourth, I think--as I was
seeking shelter from the heat and glare in a colossal ruin near
the great house where I slept and fed, there happened this
strange thing: Clambering among these heaps of masonry, I found a
narrow gallery, whose end and side windows were blocked by fallen
masses of stone. By contrast with the brilliancy outside, it
The Time Machine |
