| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: round, and he will behold the truth as clearly as he now discerns his
meaner ends. And have we not decided that our rulers must neither be so
uneducated as to have no fixed rule of life, nor so over-educated as to be
unwilling to leave their paradise for the business of the world? We must
choose out therefore the natures who are most likely to ascend to the light
and knowledge of the good; but we must not allow them to remain in the
region of light; they must be forced down again among the captives in the
den to partake of their labours and honours. 'Will they not think this a
hardship?' You should remember that our purpose in framing the State was
not that our citizens should do what they like, but that they should serve
the State for the common good of all. May we not fairly say to our
The Republic |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: must have been startled as he recognised his own position. He had
gone too far; he had stumbled into war, and, what was worse, into
defeat; he had thrown away German lives for less than nothing, and
now saw himself condemned either to accept defeat, or to kick and
pummel his failure into something like success; either to accept
defeat, or take frenzy for a counsellor. Yesterday, in cold blood,
he had judged it necessary to have the woods to the westward
guarded lest the evacuation of Laulii should prove only the peril
of Apia. To-day, in the irritation and alarm of failure, he forgot
or despised his previous reasoning, and, though his detachment was
beat back to the ships, proceeded with the remainder of his maimed
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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 The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: before, glimpses of a world past, a world dead, a world so
long dead that even in the lowest Cambrian stratum no trace of
it remains. Fused with the melting inner crust, it has passed
forever beyond the ken of man other than in that lost pocket of
the earth whither fate has borne me and where my doom is sealed.
I am here and here must remain.
After reading this far, my interest, which already had been
stimulated by the finding of the manuscript, was approaching
the boiling-point. I had come to Greenland for the summer, on the
advice of my physician, and was slowly being bored to extinction,
as I had thoughtlessly neglected to bring sufficient reading-matter.
The Land that Time Forgot |
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 Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: hand and took it up. He looked at it a moment, then handed it to
the commissioner. "We have to do with a murder here. There was
not a shot fired from this revolver, for every chamber is still
loaded. And there is no other weapon in sight," said the detective
quietly.
"Yes, he was murdered. This revolver is fully loaded. Let us
begin the search at once." Horn was more excited than he cared to
show.
Johann looked about in alarm, but when he saw the others beginning
to peer into every corner and every cupboard, he himself joined in
the man-hunt. A quarter of an hour later, the four men relinquished
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