| 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: brothers brought me gifts of amber.
I took the minion of Caesar from Caesar and made him my playfellow.
He came to me at night in a litter. He was pale as a narcissus, and
his body was like honey.
The son of the Praefect slew himself in my honour, and the Tetrarch
of Cilicia scourged himself for my pleasure before my slaves.
The King of Hierapolis who is a priest and a robber set carpets for
me to walk on.
Sometimes I sit in the circus and the gladiators fight beneath me.
Once a Thracian who was my lover was caught in the net. I gave the
signal for him to die and the whole theatre applauded. Sometimes I
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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 An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: PONT-SUR-SAMBRE
WE ARE PEDLARS
THE CIGARETTE returned with good news. There were beds to be had
some ten minutes' walk from where we were, at a place called Pont.
We stowed the canoes in a granary, and asked among the children for
a guide. The circle at once widened round us, and our offers of
reward were received in dispiriting silence. We were plainly a
pair of Bluebeards to the children; they might speak to us in
public places, and where they had the advantage of numbers; but it
was another thing to venture off alone with two uncouth and
legendary characters, who had dropped from the clouds upon their
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