| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: on earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not
tall. That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to
decide for herself. You seem to think that every aunt should be
exactly like your aunt! That is absurd! For Heaven's sake give me
back my cigarette case. [Follows ALGERNON round the room.]
ALGERNON. Yes. But why does your aunt call you her uncle? 'From
little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack.'
There is no objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but
why an aunt, no matter what her size may be, should call her own
nephew her uncle, I can't quite make out. Besides, your name isn't
Jack at all; it is Ernest.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: complex laws governing the facility of first crosses, are incidental on
unknown differences, chiefly in their reproductive systems. These
differences, in both cases, follow to a certain extent, as might have been
expected, systematic affinity, by which every kind of resemblance and
dissimilarity between organic beings is attempted to be expressed. The
facts by no means seem to me to indicate that the greater or lesser
difficulty of either grafting or crossing together various species has been
a special endowment; although in the case of crossing, the difficulty is as
important for the endurance and stability of specific forms, as in the case
of grafting it is unimportant for their welfare.
Causes of the Sterility of first Crosses and of Hybrids. -- We may now look
On the Origin of Species |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: this woman - fascinated by her - dominated by her. If a woman
wants to hold a man, she has merely to appeal to what is worst in
him. We make gods of men and they leave us. Others make brutes of
them and they fawn and are faithful. How hideous life is! . . .
Oh! it was mad of me to come here, horribly mad. And yet, which is
the worst, I wonder, to be at the mercy of a man who loves one, or
the wife of a man who in one's own house dishonours one? What
woman knows? What woman in the whole world? But will he love me
always, this man to whom I am giving my life? What do I bring him?
Lips that have lost the note of joy, eyes that are blinded by
tears, chill hands and icy heart. I bring him nothing. I must go
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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 The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Whiskers led Ojo up the gravel path to the front
door, on which he knocked.
A woman opened the door and, seeing Ojo
in his white robe, exclaimed:
"Goodness me! A prisoner at last. But what a
small one, Soldier."
"The size doesn't matter, Tollydiggle, my
dear. The fact remains that he is a prisoner,"
said the soldier. "And, this being the prison,
and you the jailer, it is my duty to place the
prisoner in your charge."
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
