| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: [Enter, upon the walls, WARWICK, the Mayor of Coventry, two
Messengers, and others.]
WARWICK.
Where is the post that came from valiant Oxford?--
How far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?
1 MESSENGER.
By this at Dunsmore, marching hitherward.
WARWICK.
How far off is our brother Montague?
Where is the post that came from Montague?
2 MESSENGER.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: exacted a solemn oath. The dying girl, farseeing as prophet, drew from
beneath her pillow a ring which she had sent by her faithful maid,
Francoise Cochet, to be engraved in Havre with these words, "Think of
Bettina, 1827," and placed it on her sister's finger, begging her to
keep it there until she married. Thus there had been between these two
young girls a strange commingling of bitter remorse and the artless
visions of a fleeting spring-time too early blighted by the keen north
wind of desertion; yet all their tears, regrets and memories were
always subordinate to their horror of evil.
Nevertheless, this drama of a poor seduced sister returning to die
under a roof of elegant poverty, the failure of her father, the
Modeste Mignon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: All through the waste and wearied hours of noon;
Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned,
And she rose up the sea-washed lips to kiss
Of some glad Cyprian sailor, safe returned
From Calpe and the cliffs of Herakles!
No! thou art Helen, and none other one!
It was for thee that young Sarpedon died,
And Memnon's manhood was untimely spent;
It was for thee gold-crested Hector tried
With Thetis' child that evil race to run,
In the last year of thy beleaguerment;
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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 Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: "One hundred francs."
"One hundred and fifty francs."
I yielded. We were not rich enough at that moment to bid higher. Our
poor fisherman did not know whether to be angry at a hoax, or to go
mad with joy; we drew him from his quandary by giving him the name of
our landlady and telling him to take the lobster and the crab to her
house.
"Do you earn enough to live on?" I asked the man, in order to discover
the cause of his evident penury.
"With great hardships, and always poorly," he replied. "Fishing on the
coast, when one hasn't a boat or deep-sea nets, nothing but pole and
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