| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: What's Mountague? it is nor hand nor foote,
Nor arme, nor face, O be some other name
Belonging to a man.
What? in a names that which we call a Rose,
By any other word would smell as sweete,
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo cal'd,
Retaine that deare perfection which he owes,
Without that title Romeo, doffe thy name,
And for thy name which is no part of thee,
Take all my selfe
Rom. I take thee at thy word:
Romeo and Juliet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt,
the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid
the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary
commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in
itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or
disturbed me. I continued the story:
"But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the
door, was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the
maliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly
and prodigious demeanour, and of a fiery tongue, which sate in
guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and upon
The Fall of the House of Usher |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: indeed I guessed what sort of stuff it must be before I
saw it: as soon as I heard she had married an emigrant,
I was sure I should never be able to get through it."
"I have never read it."
"You had no loss, I assure you; it is the horridest
nonsense you can imagine; there is nothing in the world in it
but an old man's playing at see-saw and learning Latin;
upon my soul there is not."
This critique, the justness of which was unfortunately
lost on poor Catherine, brought them to the door
of Mrs. Thorpe's lodgings, and the feelings of the
Northanger Abbey |
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 Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: Who sees the lurking serpent steps aside;
But she, sound sleeping, fearing no such thing,
Lies at the mercy of his mortal sting.
Into the chamber wickedly he stalks,
And gazeth on her yet unstained bed.
The curtains being close, about he walks,
Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head:
By their high treason is his heart misled;
Which gives the watch-word to his hand full soon
To draw the cloud that hides the silver moon.
Look, as the fair and fiery-pointed sun,
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