| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: as his feet could take him. As a horse, stabled and fed, breaks
loose and gallops gloriously over the plain to the place where he
is wont to bathe in the fair-flowing river--he holds his head
high, and his mane streams upon his shoulders as he exults in his
strength and flies like the wind to the haunts and feeding ground
of the mares--even so went forth Paris from high Pergamus,
gleaming like sunlight in his armour, and he laughed aloud as he
sped swiftly on his way. Forthwith he came upon his brother
Hector, who was then turning away from the place where he had
held converse with his wife, and he was himself the first to
speak. "Sir," said he, "I fear that I have kept you waiting when
The Iliad |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: person armed with the approval of the king. Marie was firm in
maintaining her liberty to love, that she might sacrifice it to him
later. Nearly every woman in those days had sufficient power to
establish her empire over the heart of a man in a way to make that
passion the history of his whole life, the spring and principle of his
highest resolutions. Women were a power in France; they were so many
sovereigns; they had forms of noble pride; their lovers belonged to
them far more than they gave themselves to their lovers; often their
love cost blood, and to be their lover it was necessary to incur great
dangers. But the Marie of his dream made small defence against the
young seigneur's ardent entreaties. Which of the two was the reality?
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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 New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: they were accompanied, began to change his attitude, and glance
from left to right in perturbation. In so doing he turned his face
towards the lower end of the lane, and there, to his indescribable
dismay, his eyes encountered those of General Vandeleur. The
General, in a prodigious fluster of heat, hurry, and indignation,
had been scouring the streets in chase of his brother-in-law; but
so soon as he caught a glimpse of the delinquent secretary, his
purpose changed, his anger flowed into a new channel, and he turned
on his heel and came tearing up the lane with truculent gestures
and vociferations.
Harry made but one bolt of it into the house, driving the maid
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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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: address, that hearers are never so much fatigued as by the endeavour
to follow a speaker who gives them no clue to his purpose,--I will
take the slight mask off at once, and tell you plainly that I want
to speak to you about the treasures hidden in books; and about the
way we find them, and the way we lose them. A grave subject, you
will say; and a wide one! Yes; so wide that I shall make no effort
to touch the compass of it. I will try only to bring before you a
few simple thoughts about reading, which press themselves upon me
every day more deeply, as I watch the course of the public mind with
respect to our daily enlarging means of education; and the
answeringly wider spreading on the levels, of the irrigation of
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