| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: lady again, and in fact she was again at the window. Ashamed of being
caught gazing at the hood under which her admirer was sitting, the
unknown started back at once.
"Nanny shall tell me who it is," said the Baron to himself.
The sight of the Government official had, as will be seen, made a deep
impression on this couple.
"Why, it is Baron Hulot, the chief of the department to which my
office belongs!" exclaimed the husband as he left the window.
"Well, Marneffe, the old maid on the third floor at the back of the
courtyard, who lives with that young man, is his cousin. Is it not odd
that we should never have known that till to-day, and now find it out
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: Pervade me like a musky scent, possess me like a tune.
Yet, when I crave of you, my sweet, one tender moment's grace,
You cry, "I SIT BEHIND THE VEIL, I CANNOT SHOW MY FACE."
Shall any foolish veil divide my longing from my bliss?
Shall any fragile curtain hide your beauty from my kiss?
What war is this of THEE and ME? Give o'er the wanton strife,
You are the heart within my heart, the life within my life.
AUTUMN SONG
Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow,
The sunset hangs on a cloud;
A golden storm of glittering sheaves,
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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 Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: The leader strode up to the altar; and placing himself opposite to the abbot,
and between the earl and Matilda, in such a manner that the four together
seemed to stand on the four points of a diamond, exclaimed, "In the name
of King Henry, I forbid the ceremony, and attach Robert Earl of Huntingdon as
a traitor!" and at the same time he held his drawn sword between the lovers,
as if to emblem that royal authority which laid its temporal ban upon
their contract. The earl drew his own sword instantly, and struck down
the interposing weapon; then clasped his left arm round Matilda, who sprang
into his embrace, and held his sword before her with his right hand.
His yeomen ranged themselves at his side, and stood with their swords drawn,
still and prepared, like men determined to die in his defence.
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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 Sophist by Plato: which you assert of both? Do you agree with our recent definition?
THEAETETUS: What definition?
STRANGER: We said that being was an active or passive energy, arising out
of a certain power which proceeds from elements meeting with one another.
Perhaps your ears, Theaetetus, may fail to catch their answer, which I
recognize because I have been accustomed to hear it.
THEAETETUS: And what is their answer?
STRANGER: They deny the truth of what we were just now saying to the
aborigines about existence.
THEAETETUS: What was that?
STRANGER: Any power of doing or suffering in a degree however slight was
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