| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: It was a chance, an instinct, for I had not heard anything.
I almost let my luminary drop and certainly I stepped back,
straightening myself up at what I saw. Miss Bordereau stood
there in her nightdress, in the doorway of her room, watching me;
her hands were raised, she had lifted the everlasting
curtain that covered half her face, and for the first,
the last, the only time I beheld her extraordinary eyes.
They glared at me, they made me horribly ashamed.
I never shall forget her strange little bent white tottering
figure, with its lifted head, her attitude, her expression;
neither shall I forget the tone in which as I turned,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: responsibility, and merely put in practice principles which have
been previously recognized by the majority. But if any change is
to be introduced in the existing state of things, or if they wish
to undertake any new enterprise, they are obliged to refer to the
source of their power. If, for instance, a school is to be
established, the selectmen convoke the whole body of the electors
on a certain day at an appointed place; they explain the urgency
of the case; they give their opinion on the means of satisfying
it, on the probable expense, and the site which seems to be most
favorable. The meeting is consulted on these several points; it
adopts the principle, marks out the site, votes the rate, and
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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 Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The Waste Land |
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 Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: were attended by white-robed eunuchs, who knelt when they spoke
to the Princess. There was such a lot of them.
"How many servants do you use ordinarily?" I asked the eldest
daughter.
"About four hundred," she replied.
I thought of the task of robing four hundred servants in new
white sackcloth, and attending to all the other things that I had
seen, in the forty-eight hours since the death of the Dowager
Princess. Even the bread, instead of being dotted with red as it
is ordinarily, was dotted with black!
As we were finishing our supper we heard the horns of the priests
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