| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: So soon as the second man had appeared, Montgomery had started forward.
"Steady on there!" he cried, in a tone of remonstrance.
A couple of sailors appeared on the forecastle. The black-faced man,
howling in a singular voice rolled about under the feet of the dogs.
No one attempted to help him. The brutes did their best to worry him,
butting their muzzles at him. There was a quick dance of their
lithe grey-figured bodies over the clumsy, prostrate figure.
The sailors forward shouted, as though it was admirable sport.
Montgomery gave an angry exclamation, and went striding down
the deck, and I followed him. The black-faced man scrambled
up and staggered forward, going and leaning over the bulwark
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: Thus was the abbot's perjury but of one minute's duration;
for though his speech was false in the utterance, yet was it no sooner
uttered than it became true, and we should have been participes
criminis to have suffered the holy abbot to depart in falsehood:
whereas he came to us a false priest, and we sent him away
a true man. Marry, we turned his cloak to further account,
and thereby hangs a tale that may be either said or sung;
for in truth I am minstrel here as well as chaplain;
I pray for good success to our just and necessary warfare,
and sing thanks-giving odes when our foresters bring in booty:
Bold Robin has robed him in ghostly attire,
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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 Symposium by Plato: dishonour to himself, so the beloved has one way only of voluntary service
which is not dishonourable, and this is virtuous service.
For we have a custom, and according to our custom any one who does service
to another under the idea that he will be improved by him either in wisdom,
or in some other particular of virtue--such a voluntary service, I say, is
not to be regarded as a dishonour, and is not open to the charge of
flattery. And these two customs, one the love of youth, and the other the
practice of philosophy and virtue in general, ought to meet in one, and
then the beloved may honourably indulge the lover. For when the lover and
beloved come together, having each of them a law, and the lover thinks that
he is right in doing any service which he can to his gracious loving 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 The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: the busy world, behind its bushy bit of a green garden, in which
all the blooming things, two or three gay hollyhocks and some
London-pride, were pushed back against the gray-shingled wall. It
was a queer little garden and puzzling to a stranger, the few
flowers being put at a disadvantage by so much greenery; but the
discovery was soon made that Mrs. Todd was an ardent lover of
herbs, both wild and tame, and the sea-breezes blew into the low
end-window of the house laden with not only sweet-brier and sweet-
mary, but balm and sage and borage and mint, wormwood and
southernwood. If Mrs. Todd had occasion to step into the far
corner of her herb plot, she trod heavily upon thyme, and made its
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