| 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: encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am
always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take
much notice . . . as far as any improvement in his ailment goes. I
should be much obliged if you would ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, to be
kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to
arrange my music for me. It is my last reception, and one wants
something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end
of the season when every one has practically said whatever they had
to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much.
ALGERNON. I'll speak to Bunbury, Aunt Augusta, if he is still
conscious, and I think I can promise you he'll be all right by
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: any incongruity in the use of the war conch for the peaceful
invitation to prayer. In response to its summons the white members
of the family took their usual places in one end of the large hall,
while the Samoans - men, women, and children - trooped in through
all the open doors, some carrying lanterns if the evening were
dark, all moving quietly and dropping with Samoan decorum in a wide
semicircle on the floor beneath a great lamp that hung from the
ceiling. The service began by my son reading a chapter from the
Samoan Bible, Tusitala following with a prayer in English,
sometimes impromptu, but more often from the notes in this little
book, interpolating or changing with the circumstance of the day.
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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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: earnest.
The thing is this.
That of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice
throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the
best--I'm sure it is the most religious--for I begin with writing the first
sentence--and trusting to Almighty God for the second.
'Twould cure an author for ever of the fuss and folly of opening his
street-door, and calling in his neighbours and friends, and kinsfolk, with
the devil and all his imps, with their hammers and engines, &c. only to
observe how one sentence of mine follows another, and how the plan follows
the whole.
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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 Ursula by Honore de Balzac: of God or devil, being a practical materialist, just as he was a
practical agriculturist, a practical egoist, and a practical miser,
Minoret had enjoyed up to this time a life of unmixed happiness,--if
we can call pure materialism happiness. A physiologist, observing the
rolls of flesh which covered the last vertebrae and pressed upon the
giant's cerebellum, and, above all, hearing the shrill, sharp voice
which contrasted so absurdly with his huge body, would have understood
why this ponderous, coarse being adored his only son, and why he had
so long expected him,--a fact proved by the name, Desire, which was
given to the child.
The mother, whom the boy fortunately resembled, rivaled the father in
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