| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: passe trois nuits sur les montagnes les cherchant partout. Je ne
les ai pas trouves. Enfin, je les ai appeles par leurs noms et ils
n'ont pas paru. Je pense qu'ils sont morts.
PREMIER SOLDAT. Les Juifs adorent un Dieu qu'on ne peut pas voir.
LE CAPPADOCIEN. Je ne peux pas comprendre cela.
PREMIER SOLDAT. Enfin, ils ne croient qu'aux choses qu'on ne peut
pas voir.
LE CAPPADOCIEN. Cela me semble absolument ridicule.
LA VOIX D'IOKANAAN. Apres moi viendra un autre encore plus puissant
que moi. Je ne suis pas digne meme de delier la courroie de ses
sandales. Quand il viendra la terre deserte se rejouira. Elle
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Nur. O wo, O wofull, wofull, wofull day,
Most lamentable day, most wofull day,
That euer, euer, I did yet behold.
O day, O day, O day, O hatefull day,
Neuer was seene so blacke a day as this:
O wofull day, O wofull day
Pa. Beguild, diuorced, wronged, spighted, slaine,
Most detestable death, by thee beguil'd,
By cruell, cruell thee, quite ouerthrowne:
O loue, O life; not life, but loue in death
Fat. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martir'd, kil'd,
Romeo and Juliet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: done so much for her reputation as her lending Neil Paraday the
most beautiful of her numerous homes to die in. He took advantage
to the utmost of the singular favour. Day by day I saw him sink,
and I roamed alone about the empty terraces and gardens. His wife
never came near him, but I scarcely noticed it: as I paced there
with rage in my heart I was too full of another wrong. In the
event of his death it would fall to me perhaps to bring out in some
charming form, with notes, with the tenderest editorial care, that
precious heritage of his written project. But where was that
precious heritage and were both the author and the book to have
been snatched from us? Lady Augusta wrote me that she had done all
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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 Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: and quiet the dead lay under the stones, and how the boat dipped and
pitched as the shades embarked for the passionless land. Yet a
little while, sang the poet, and there shall be no more love; only to
sit and remember loves that might have been. There is a falling
flourish in the air that remains in the memory and comes back in
incongruous places, on the seat of hansoms or in the warm bed at
night, with something of a forest savour.
'You can get up now,' says the painter; 'I'm at the background.'
And so up you get, stretching yourself, and go your way into the
wood, the daylight becoming richer and more golden, and the shadows
stretching farther into the open. A cool air comes along the
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