| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the
people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and,
if they cant find them, make them.
MRS WARREN. Oh, it's easy to talk, isnt it? Here! would you
like to know what m y circumstances were?
VIVIE. Yes: you had better tell me. Wont you sit down?
MRS WARREN. Oh, I'll sit down: dont you be afraid. [She plants
her chair farther forward with brazen energy, and sits down.
Vivie is impressed in spite of herself]. D'you know what your
gran'mother was?
VIVIE. No.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: a depth of stupor. What he most took in, however, at present, with
the steadier clearance, was that Alice Staverton had for a long
unspeakable moment not doubted he was dead.
"It must have been that I WAS." He made it out as she held him.
"Yes - I can only have died. You brought me literally to life.
Only," he wondered, his eyes rising to her, "only, in the name of
all the benedictions, how?"
It took her but an instant to bend her face and kiss him, and
something in the manner of it, and in the way her hands clasped and
locked his head while he felt the cool charity and virtue of her
lips, something in all this beatitude somehow answered everything.
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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 Bucolics by Virgil: Doves of Dodona when an eagle comes.
Nay, had I not, from hollow ilex-bole
Warned by a raven on the left, cut short
The rising feud, nor I, your Moeris here,
No, nor Menalcas, were alive to-day.
LYCIDAS
Alack! could any of so foul a crime
Be guilty? Ah! how nearly, thyself,
Reft was the solace that we had in thee,
Menalcas! Who then of the Nymphs had sung,
Or who with flowering herbs bestrewn the ground,
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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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: to the fate that could not for long be averted! No man
could accuse him of cowardice or treachery, for
Kulan Tith was in arms against Helium, and, further,
upon the Thuria were not enough swords to delay even
temporarily the outcome that already was a foregone
conclusion in the minds of the watchers.
What would Carthoris, Prince of Helium, do?
Scarce had the device broken to the faint breeze ere the bow
of the Thuria dropped at a sharp angle toward the ground.
"Can you navigate her?" asked Carthoris of Thuvia.
The girl nodded.
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
