| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: and ever and anon he threw a taunting challenge to the
foes that faced him. In this and other ways his manner of
fighting was similar to that which had always marked me
on the field of combat.
Perhaps it was this vague likeness which made me love
the boy, while the awful havoc that his sword played amongst
the blacks filled my soul with a tremendous respect for him.
For my part, I was fighting as I had fought a thousand
times before--now sidestepping a wicked thrust, now stepping
quickly in to let my sword's point drink deep in a foeman's
heart, before it buried itself in the throat of his companion.
The Gods of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: posterity, he betrays by a score of casual phrases that he was
short, sturdy, inclined to be plump, with a 'rather blobby' face,
and full, rather projecting blue eyes. He belonged until the
financial debacle of 1956 to the class of fairly prosperous
people, he was a student in London, he aeroplaned to Italy and
then had a pedestrian tour from Genoa to Rome, crossed in the air
to Greece and Egypt, and came back over the Balkans and Germany.
His family fortunes, which were largely invested in bank shares,
coal mines, and house property, were destroyed. Reduced to
penury, he sought to earn a living. He suffered great hardship,
and was then caught up by the war and had a year of soldiering,
The Last War: A World Set Free |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: GUIDO. Oh! we are weary of that King of France,
Who never comes, but ever talks of coming.
What are these things to me? There are other things
Closer, and of more import, good Simone.
BIANCA [To Simone]. I think you tire our most gracious guest.
What is the King of France to us? As much
As are your English merchants with their wool.
* * * * *
SIMONE. Is it so then? Is all this mighty world
Narrowed into the confines of this room
With but three souls for poor inhabitants?
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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 Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: gain was gone, and when they beat upon their drums at noon none, or
but a few, came with peacocks and with offerings of flesh as had
been the custom of the land before his coming.
Yet the more the people followed him, and the greater the number of
his disciples, the greater became his sorrow. And he knew not why
his sorrow was so great. For he spake ever about God, and out of
the fulness of that perfect knowledge of God which God had Himself
given to him.
And one evening he passed out of the eleventh city, which was a
city of Armenia, and his disciples and a great crowd of people
followed after him; and he went up on to a mountain and sat down on
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