| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: murdered what could induce the murderer to stay? That won't hold
water; it doesn't commend itself to reason."
"Well, Mr. Utterson, you are a hard man to satisfy, but I'll
do it yet," said Poole. "All this last week (you must know) him,
or it, whatever it is that lives in that cabinet, has been crying
night and day for some sort of medicine and cannot get it to his
mind. It was sometimes his way--the master's, that is--to
write his orders on a sheet of paper and throw it on the stair.
We've had nothing else this week back; nothing but papers, and a
closed door, and the very meals left there to be smuggled in when
nobody was looking. Well, sir, every day, ay, and twice and
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: question is again only the word "Republic," and as often as the
revolutionary conflict threatens to sink down to the lowest level. In
passing, I might observe that the journal which gave to this party its
name, the "National," goes over to Socialism during the following
period.
Before we close this period, we must look back upon the two powers, one
of destroys the other on December 2, 1851, while, from December 20,
1848, down to the departure of the constitutional assembly, they live
marital relations. We mean Louis Bonaparte, on the-one hand, on the
other, the party of the allied royalists; of Order, and of the large
bourgeoisie.
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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 The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: asserted himself strongly. If he escaped being
smothered by this stagnant heat, he said, he was
confident that in a very few days he would be able
to come up on deck and help me.
While he was speaking I trembled lest this effort
of energy should leave him lifeless before my eyes.
But I cannot deny that there was something com-
forting in his willingness. I made a suitable
reply, but pointed out to him that the only thing
that could really help us was wind--a fair wind.
He rolled his head impatiently on the pillow.
The Shadow Line |
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 Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: Ireland, with an entire immunity from poisonous reptiles;
but, with the perfect inconsequence of the natural man, they
were no sooner found out than they went off at score in the
contrary direction, and we were told that in no part of the
world did rattlesnakes attain to such a monstrous bigness as
among the warm, flower-dotted rocks of Silverado. This is a
contribution rather to the natural history of the Hansons,
than to that of snakes.
One person, however, better served by his instinct, had known
the rattle from the first; and that was Chuchu, the dog. No
rational creature has ever led an existence more poisoned by
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