| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare: Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?
BUCKINGHAM. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place,
Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.
PRINCE. Is it upon record, or else reported
Successively from age to age, he built it?
BUCKINGHAM. Upon record, my gracious lord.
PRINCE. But say, my lord, it were not regist'red,
Methinks the truth should live from age to age,
As 'twere retail'd to all posterity,
Even to the general all-ending day.
GLOUCESTER. [Aside] So wise so young, they say, do never
Richard III |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: trances that were frequent to him, he traveled from sphere to sphere,
from vision to vision, listening for obscure rustlings and the voices
of angels, and believing that he heard them; seeing, or fancying that
he saw, a divine radiance in which he lost himself; striving to attain
the far-away goal, the source of all light, the fount of all harmony.
Presently the vast clamor of Paris, brought down on the current, was
hushed; lights were extinguished one by one in the houses; silence
spread over all; and the huge city slept like a tired giant.
Midnight struck. The least noise, the fall of a leaf, or the flight of
a jackdaw changing its perching-place among the pinnacles of Notre-
Dame, would have been enough to bring the stranger's mind to earth
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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 Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: fire burnt as usual, the little tables were laid with china and
silver. There was nobody there.
"Ah," she said, "Katharine's not here. She must be upstairs in her
room. You have something to say to her, I know, Mr. Denham. You can
find your way?" she vaguely indicated the ceiling with a gesture of
her hand. She had become suddenly serious and composed, mistress in
her own house. The gesture with which she dismissed him had a dignity
that Ralph never forgot. She seemed to make him free with a wave of
her hand to all that she possessed. He left the room.
The Hilberys' house was tall, possessing many stories and passages
with closed doors, all, once he had passed the drawing-room floor,
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