| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: Lear. Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?
[Strikes him.]
Osw. I'll not be strucken, my lord.
Kent. Nor tripp'd neither, you base football player?
[Trips up his heels.
Lear. I thank thee, fellow. Thou serv'st me, and I'll love
thee.
Kent. Come, sir, arise, away! I'll teach you differences. Away,
away! If you will measure your lubber's length again, tarry;
but
away! Go to! Have you wisdom? So.
King Lear |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: The Carew Murder Case
Nearly a year later, in the month of October, 18--, London was
startled by a crime of singular ferocity and rendered all the more
notable by the high position of the victim. The details were few
and startling. A maid servant living alone in a house not far
from the river, had gone upstairs to bed about eleven. Although a
fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of the
night was cloudless, and the lane, which the maid's window
overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full moon. It seems she
was romantically given, for she sat down upon her box, which stood
immediately under the window, and fell into a dream of musing.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: to indemnify them for the dust raised on their roads by the herds
that go to market, the sextelage on everything offered for sale in
the public markets, the etalonnage, and all the rest? What of their
rights over men and animals for field labour, of ferries over rivers,
and of bridges over streams, of sinking wells, of warren, of dovecot,
and of fire, which last yields them a tax on every peasant hearth?
What of their exclusive rights of fishing and of hunting, the
violation of which is ranked as almost a capital offence?
"And what of other rights, unspeakable, abominable, over the lives
and bodies of their people, rights which, if rarely exercised, have
never been rescinded. To this day if a noble returning from the
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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 The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: If not, the foughten field, what else, at once
Decides it, 'sdeath! against my father's will.'
I lagged in answer loth to render up
My precontract, and loth by brainless war
To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet;
Till one of those two brothers, half aside
And fingering at the hair about his lip,
To prick us on to combat 'Like to like!
The woman's garment hid the woman's heart.'
A taunt that clenched his purpose like a blow!
For fiery-short was Cyril's counter-scoff,
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