| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: famous in fable as the home of many fierce and terrible creatures;
while not far away lay the land of the dragon, the simurg and other
ferocious monsters.
Rob may have read of these things in fairy tales and books of travel,
but if so they had entirely slipped his mind; so he slumbered
peacefully and actually snored a little, I believe, towards morning.
But even as the red sun peeped curiously over the horizon he was
awakened by a most unusual disturbance--a succession of hoarse screams
and a pounding of the air as from the quickly revolving blades of some
huge windmill.
He rubbed his eyes and looked around.
The Master Key |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: "There is a possibility of so constructing a State that in it
there will be a ruling caste consisting chiefly of administrative
engineers, technicians, etc.; that is, we should get a form of
State economy based on a small group of a ruling caste
whose privilege in this case would be the management of the
workersand peasants." That criticism of individual control, from
a communist, goes a good deal further than most of the
criticism from people avowedly in opposition.] The enormous
importance attached by everybody to this question of individual
or collegiate control, may bejudged from the fact that at
every conference I attended, and every discussion to which
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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 Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: draw up a little paper, and you, on your part, will write one for
us."
"Very good, ma'am," said the nurse, delighted with the idea of so
important a transaction. "Why, it's just as you do when you rent
a house!"
"Here comes the doctor," said the other. "Come, nurse, it is
agreed?"
"Yes, ma'am," was the answer. But all the same, as she went out
she hesitated and looked sharply first at the doctor, and then at
George and his mother. She suspected that something was wrong,
and she meant to find out if she could.
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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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: gentry, and had every comfort, and as I was of her flesh and
blood, I lived with her in the master's house. She petted and
spoiled me, and did her best to take me out of my humble class
and make a gentleman of me. I slept in a bed, every day I ate a
real dinner, I wore breeches and shoes like a gentleman's child.
What my mamma ate I was fed on, too; they gave her stuffs as a
present, and she dressed me up in them. . . . We lived well! I
ate so many sweets and cakes in my childish years that if they
could be sold now it would be enough to buy a goo d horse. Mamma
taught me to read and write, she instilled the fear of God in me
from my earliest years, and she so trained me that now I can't
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