| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: into the darkness. Those that bent over to peer into the cavern beheld
a vague and terrifying shape in its depths.
This proved to be a human being, lying on the ground. His long locks
hung over a camel's-hair robe that covered his shoulders. Slowly he
rose to his feet. His head touched a grating embedded in the wall; and
as he moved about he disappeared, from time to time, in the shadows of
his dungeon.
The rich tiaras of the Romans sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight,
and their glittering sword-hilts threw out glancing golden rays. The
doves, flying from their cotes, circled above the heads of the
multitude. It was the hour when Mannaeus was accustomed to feed them.
Herodias |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: girls nowadays who are quite unpresentable at tea, with their
untrimmed laughs, their awful dispositions of their legs when
they sit down, their slangy disrespect; they no longer smoke, it
is true, like the girls of the eighties and nineties,
nevertheless to a fine intelligence they have the flavor of
tobacco. They have no amenities, they scratch the mellow surface
of things almost as if they did it on purpose; and Lady
Palsworthy and Mrs. Pramlay lived for amenities and the mellowed
surfaces of things. Ann Veronica was one of the few young
people--and one must have young people just as one must have
flowers--one could ask to a little gathering without the risk of
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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 Contrast by Royall Tyler: over pretty things, and so have left twenty visits unpaid.
I wish you would step into the carriage and whisk
round, make my apology, and leave my cards where
our friends are not at home; that, you know, will
serve as a visit. Come, do go.
LETITIA
So anxious to get me out! but I'll watch you.
[Aside.] Oh! yes, I'll go; I want a little exercise.
Positively [Dimple offering to accompany her], Mr.
Dimple, you shall not go; why, half my visits are cake
and caudle visits; it won't do, you know, for you to
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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 Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: 'I like Toby,' said Una.
'Who was he?' said Puck.
'Apothecary Tobias Hirte,' Pharaoh replied. 'One Hundred
and Eighteen, Second Street - the famous Seneca Oil man, that
lived half of every year among the Indians. But let me tell my tale
my own way, same as his brown mare used to go to Lebanon.'
'Then why did he keep her in Davy Jones's locker?' Dan asked.
'That was his joke. He kept her under David Jones's hat shop in
the "Buck" tavern yard, and his Indian friends kept their ponies
there when they visited him. I looked after the horses when I
wasn't rolling pills on top of the old spinet, while he played his
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