| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: It was full dark when we pulled up opposite the door of Ranjit
Singh's Tomb near the main gate of the Fort. Here was Suddhoo and
he said that, by reason of my condescension, it was absolutely
certain that I should become a Lieutenant-Governor while my hair was
yet black. Then we talked about the weather and the state of my
health, and the wheat crops, for fifteen minutes, in the Huzuri
Bagh, under the stars.
Suddhoo came to the point at last. He said that Janoo had told him
that there was an order of the Sirkar against magic, because it was
feared that magic might one day kill the Empress of India. I didn't
know anything about the state of the law; but I fancied that
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: of questions, only a fraction of the nation have
any direct interest or knowledge, yet the others have
an equal voice in their settlement. When people have
no direct interest in a question they are very apt
to be influenced by irrelevant considerations; this is
shown in the extraordinary reluctance to grant autonomy
to subordinate nations or groups. For this
reason, it is very dangerous to allow the nation as a
whole to decide on matters which concern only a small
section, whether that section be geographical or
industrial or defined in any other way. The best
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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 Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: won her good-will by some neighborly services, something so
trifling, indeed, that the thought of a favor conferred never
entered his mind. Ann Pardon saw that it did not; she detected a
streak of most unconscious goodness under his uncouth, embarrassed
ways, and she determined to cultivate it. No little tact was
required, however, to coax the wild, forlorn creature into so much
confidence as she desired to establish; but tact is a native
quality of the heart no less than a social acquirement, and so she
did the very thing necessary without thinking much about it.
Robert Pardon discovered by and by that Jacob was a steady,
faithful hand in the harvest-field at husking-time, or whenever any
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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 First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: exceedingly but exerted little pressure. It was blowing I round the
crater, as it seemed, to the hot illuminated side from the foggy darkness
under the sunward wall. It was difficult to look into this eastward fog;
we had to peer with half-closed eyes beneath the shade of our hands,
because of the fierce intensity of the motionless sun.
"It seems to be deserted," said Cavor, "absolutely desolate."
I looked about me again. I retained even then a clinging hope of some
quasi-human evidence, some pinnacle of building, some house or engine, but
everywhere one looked spread the tumbled rocks in peaks and crests, and
the darting scrub and those bulging cacti that swelled and swelled, a flat
negation as it seemed of all such hope.
The First Men In The Moon |
