| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: and be hang'd for his labour. First, to be hang'd,
and then to confesse: I tremble at it. Nature would not
inuest her selfe in such shadowing passion, without some
Instruction. It is not words that shakes me thus, (pish)
Noses, Eares, and Lippes: is't possible. Confesse? Handkerchiefe?
O diuell.
Falls in a Traunce.
Iago. Worke on,
My Medicine workes. Thus credulous Fooles are caught,
And many worthy, and chast Dames euen thus,
(All guiltlesse) meete reproach: what hoa? My Lord?
Othello |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: I am not in the least likely to meet another character so decent.
His name is immaterial, not so his habits. He had passed his life
wandering in a tweed suit on the continent of Europe; and years
of Galignani's Messenger having at length undermined his
eyesight, he suddenly remembered the rivers of Assyria and came
to London to consult an oculist. From the oculist to the dentist,
and from both to the physician, the step appears inevitable;
presently he was in the hands of Sir Faraday, robed in
ventilating cloth and sent to Bournemouth; and to that
domineering baronet (who was his only friend upon his native
soil) he was now returning to report. The case of these
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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 Under the Andes by Rex Stout: beginning to entertain the hope that we might, after all, get
through without being discovered, when Harry suddenly stopped
short, pulling at my arm. At the same instant I saw, far down the
corridor, a crowd of black forms moving toward us.
Even at that distance something about their appearance and
gait told us that they were not women. Their number was so great
that as they advanced they filled the passage from wall to wall.
There was but one way to escape certain discovery; and
distasteful as it was, we did not hesitate to employ it. In a
glance I saw that we were directly opposite an open doorway; with
a whispered word to Harry I sprang across the corridor and within
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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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that
sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!' she cried,
weeping bitterly. 'The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the
music, the renown to which I am condemned--those are my life; I have
no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the
same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.'
"The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which
contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that
extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice,
La Zambinella's attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with
dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all
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