| 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: QUEEN.
Because the king, forsooth, will have it so.
GLOSTER.
Madam, the King is old enough himself
To give his censure; these are no women's matters.
QUEEN.
If he be old enough, what needs your grace
To be protector of his excellence?
GLOSTER.
Madam, I am protector of the realm,
And, at his pleasure, will resign my place.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: days, before this trouble came upon me. God knows at least that I
shall never laugh again, thought I. But oh, what a cruel thing is
a farce to those engaged in it!
A little out of the village, Modestine, filled with the demon, set
her heart upon a by-road, and positively refused to leave it. I
dropped all my bundles, and, I am ashamed to say, struck the poor
sinner twice across the face. It was pitiful to see her lift her
head with shut eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very
near crying; but I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely
down by the roadside to consider my situation under the cheerful
influence of tobacco and a nip of brandy. Modestine, in the
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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 In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: where we were going, and suggested by way of amendment. 'Why do
you not rather show him the cemetery?' I saw it; it was but newly
opened, the third within eight years. They are great builders here
in Hiva-oa; I saw in my ride paepaes that no European dry-stone
mason could have equalled, the black volcanic stones were laid so
justly, the corners were so precise, the levels so true; but the
retaining-wall of the new graveyard stood apart, and seemed to be a
work of love. The sentiment of honour for the dead is therefore
not extinct. And yet observe the consequence of violently
countering men's opinions. Of the four prisoners in Atuona gaol,
three were of course thieves; the fourth was there for sacrilege.
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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 Poems by Oscar Wilde: His thick soft throat was white as milk and
threaded with thin veins of blue:
And curious pearls like frozen dew were
broidered on his flowing silk.
On pearl and porphyry pedestalled he was
too bright to look upon:
For on his ivory breast there shone the wondrous
ocean-emerald,
That mystic moonlit jewel which some diver of
the Colchian caves
Had found beneath the blackening waves and
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