| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: But not her honesty to give consent.
[Enter Countess.]
See where she comes; was never father had
Against his child an embassage so bad?
COUNTESS.
My Lord and father, I have sought for you:
My mother and the Peers importune you
To keep in presence of his majesty,
And do your best to make his highness merry.
WARWICK.
[Aside.] How shall I enter in this graceless arrant?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: more angry than to see me with a newspaper. She
seemed to think that here lay the danger. I have had
her rush at me with a face made all up of fury, and
snatch from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully
revealed her apprehension. She was an apt woman;
and a little experience soon demonstrated, to her
satisfaction, that education and slavery were incom-
patible with each other.
From this time I was most narrowly watched. If I
was in a separate room any considerable length of
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: great Preserver, to whose singular protection I acknowledged, with
great humanity, all these unknown deliverances were due, and
without which I must inevitably have fallen into their merciless
hands.
When these thoughts were over, my head was for some time taken up
in considering the nature of these wretched creatures, I mean the
savages, and how it came to pass in the world that the wise
Governor of all things should give up any of His creatures to such
inhumanity - nay, to something so much below even brutality itself
- as to devour its own kind: but as this ended in some (at that
time) fruitless speculations, it occurred to me to inquire what
Robinson Crusoe |
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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac: The first four of these personages, being bachelors, courted her with
the hope of marriage, furthering their cause by either letting her see
the evils they could do her, or those from which they could protect
her. The public prosecutor, previously an attorney at Caen, and the
manager of the countess's affairs, tried to inspire her with love by
an appearance of generosity and devotion; a dangerous attempt for her.
He was the most to be feared among her suitors. He alone knew the
exact condition of the property of his former client. His passion was
increased by cupidity, and his cause was backed by enormous power, the
power of life and death throughout the district. This man, still
young, showed so much apparent nobleness and generosity in his
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