| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: their association. They surveyed life to its uttermost limits. How
deep it was when looked at from this height! How sublime! How the
commonest things moved him almost to tears! Thus, he forgot the
inevitable limitations; he forgot her absence, he thought it of no
account whether she married him or another; nothing mattered, save
that she should exist, and that he should love her. Some words of
these reflections were uttered aloud, and it happened that among them
were the words, "I love her." It was the first time that he had used
the word "love" to describe his feeling; madness, romance,
hallucination--he had called it by these names before; but having,
apparently by accident, stumbled upon the word "love," he repeated it
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: sufficiently left by the tide, that the boats might have some
shelter from the range of the sea, they proceeded at 8 a.m.,
and upon the whole made a pretty good landing; and after two
hours and three-quarters' work returned to the ship in safety.
In the afternoon the wind considerably increased, and, as
a pretty heavy sea was still running, the tender rode very
hard, when Mr. Taylor, the commander, found it necessary to
take in the bowsprit, and strike the fore and main topmasts,
that she might ride more easily. After consulting about the
state of the weather, it was resolved to leave the artificers
on board this evening, and carry only the smiths to the rock,
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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 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: which the constellified, or indeed deified tresses, address in most
melodious and highly-finished Greek, bedizened with concetto on
concetto, that fair and sacred head whereon they grew, to be shorn from
which is so dire a sorrow, that apotheosis itself can hardly reconcile
them to the parting.
Worthy, was not all this, of the descendants of the men who fought at
Marathon and Thermopylae? The old Greek civilisation was rotting
swiftly down; while a fire of God was preparing, slowly and dimly, in
that unnoticed Italian town of Rome, which was destined to burn up that
dead world, and all its works.
Callimachus's hymns, those may read who list. They are highly finished
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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 Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: The tender grasses and the meadow flowers;
Then suddenly the heavy clouds close in
And through the dark the thunder's muttering
Is drowned amid the dashing of the rain.
But I have seen my day grow calm again.
The sun sets slowly on a peaceful world,
And sheds a quiet light across the fields.
Guenevere
I was a queen, and I have lost my crown;
A wife, and I have broken all my vows;
A lover, and I ruined him I loved: --
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