| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: survival of the fittest, with the result that when the
exodus took place the strong, the intelligent, and the
cunning, together with their offspring, crossed the waters
of the Channel or the North Sea to the continent, leaving in
unhappy England only the helpless inmates of asylums for the
feebleminded and insane.
My objections to this, that the present inhabitants of
England are mentally fit, and could therefore not have
descended from an ancestry of undiluted lunacy he brushes
aside with the assertion that insanity is not necessarily
hereditary; and that even though it was, in many cases a
Lost Continent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: roof. The father had taken upon himself the education of his sons,
leaving that of the daughters to his wife. He saw less danger for
women than for men in the application of his wife's oppressive system.
The two Maries, destined as women to endure tyranny, either of love or
marriage, would be, he thought, less injured than boys, whose minds
ought to have freer play, and whose manly qualities would deteriorate
under the powerful compression of religious ideas pushed to their
utmost consequences. Of four victims the count saved two.
The countess regarded her sons as too ill-trained to admit of the
slightest intimacy with their sisters. All communication between the
poor children was therefore strictly watched. When the boys came home
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: or four maxims, with which I am desirous to make you acquainted.
The first was to obey the laws and customs of my country, adhering firmly
to the faith in which, by the grace of God, I had been educated from my
childhood and regulating my conduct in every other matter according to the
most moderate opinions, and the farthest removed from extremes, which
should happen to be adopted in practice with general consent of the most
judicious of those among whom I might be living. For as I had from that
time begun to hold my own opinions for nought because I wished to subject
them all to examination, I was convinced that I could not do better than
follow in the meantime the opinions of the most judicious; and although
there are some perhaps among the Persians and Chinese as judicious as
Reason Discourse |
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 Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: begin to organize the workers so that they might destroy the
capitalists. But how could I know whether they were true? I had
no knowledge of past history. And without knowing the past how
could I judge the future? I was like the old man who had never
seen a railroad train. His sons took him thirty miles over the
hills and brought him to the depot where a train was standing.
The old man looked things over and saw that the wheels were made
of iron. "It will never start," he said. He knew that if his
wagon had heavy iron wheels, his team could never start it. But
his sons said: "It will start all right." They had seen it
before; they knew its past history. Soon the train started,
|
