| 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: During the evening he found that an "important event" was Madame
Bernhardt's production of a new play, and Rob followed it from
beginning to end with great enjoyment, although he felt a bit guilty
at not having purchased a ticket.
"But it's a crowded house, anyway," he reflected, "and I'm not taking
up a reserved seat or keeping any one else from seeing the show. So
where's the harm? Yet it seems to me if these Records get to be
common, as the Demon wishes, people will all stay at home and see the
shows, and the poor actors 'll starve to death."
The thought made him uneasy, and he began, for the first time,
to entertain a doubt of the Demon's wisdom in forcing such devices
The Master Key |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: night and day except when I am wanted, and then I must be
just as steady and quiet as any old horse who has worked twenty years.
Straps here and straps there, a bit in my mouth, and blinkers over my eyes.
Now, I am not complaining, for I know it must be so. I only mean to say
that for a young horse full of strength and spirits,
who has been used to some large field or plain where he can fling up his head
and toss up his tail and gallop away at full speed, then round and back again
with a snort to his companions -- I say it is hard never to have
a bit more liberty to do as you like. Sometimes, when I have had
less exercise than usual, I have felt so full of life and spring
that when John has taken me out to exercise I really could not keep quiet;
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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 Intentions by Oscar Wilde: would prove of real practical service to many earnest and deep-
thinking people. Lying for the sake of the improvement of the
young, which is the basis of home education, still lingers amongst
us, and its advantages are so admirably set forth in the early
books of Plato's REPUBLIC that it is unnecessary to dwell upon them
here. It is a mode of lying for which all good mothers have
peculiar capabilities, but it is capable of still further
development, and has been sadly overlooked by the School Board.
Lying for the sake of a monthly salary is of course well known in
Fleet Street, and the profession of a political leader-writer is
not without its advantages. But it is said to be a somewhat dull
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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 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: at home, or at least guests, in many realms of the spirit, having
escaped again and again from the gloomy, agreeable nooks in which
preferences and prejudices, youth, origin, the accident of men
and books, or even the weariness of travel seemed to confine us,
full of malice against the seductions of dependency which he
concealed in honours, money, positions, or exaltation of the
senses, grateful even for distress and the vicissitudes of
illness, because they always free us from some rule, and its
"prejudice," grateful to the God, devil, sheep, and worm in us,
inquisitive to a fault, investigators to the point of cruelty,
with unhesitating fingers for the intangible, with teeth and
Beyond Good and Evil |
