| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: forward to pardon them, if they submitted to him. Therefore, he
advised them to consult among themselves, nor should he find
fault, whichever course they adopted. If they thought fit to
submit to fortune, he would impute their change to necessity; but
if they resolved to stand firm, and undertake the danger for the
sake of liberty, he should not only commend, but admire their
courage, and would himself be their leader and companion too,
till they had put to the proof the utmost fortune of their
country; which was not Utica or Adrumetum, but Rome, and she had
often, by her own greatness, raised herself after worse
disasters. Besides, as there were many things that would conduce
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: the present time. She was clear there were no other minds like
them in all the world.
Part 4
Then one evening Ann Veronica went with Miss Miniver into the
back seats of the gallery at Essex Hall, and heard and saw the
giant leaders of the Fabian Society who are re-making the world:
Bernard Shaw and Toomer and Doctor Tumpany and Wilkins the
author, all displayed upon a platform. The place was crowded,
and the people about her were almost equally made up of very
good-looking and enthusiastic young people and a great variety of
Goopes-like types. In the discussion there was the oddest
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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 Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: lured by you to the terrible Valley Dor, so may it be that the
therns themselves have been lured by the First Born to an
equally horrid fate," I suggested. "It would be a stern and
awful retribution, Phaidor; but a just one."
"I cannot believe it," she said.
"We shall see," I answered, and then we fell silent again for we
were rapidly approaching the black mountains, which in some
indefinable way seemed linked with the answer to our problem.
As we neared the dark, truncated cone the vessel's speed was
diminished until we barely moved. Then we topped the crest
of the mountain and below us I saw yawning the mouth of a
The Gods of Mars |
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 Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: would never rest until it hopped upon the Toll House
shingles. Signs were not wanting of the ancient greatness of
Silverado. The footpath was well marked, and had been well
trodden in the old clays by thirsty miners. And far down,
buried in foliage, deep out of sight of Silverado, I came on
a last outpost of the mine - a mound of gravel, some wreck of
wooden aqueduct, and the mouth of a tunnel, like a treasure
grotto in a fairy story. A stream of water, fed by the
invisible leakage from our shaft, and dyed red with cinnabar
or iron, ran trippingly forth out of the bowels of the cave;
and, looking far under the arch, I could see something like
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