| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: abused but not examined. I did my best. I got, I think I may
say, as near as any foreigner who was not a Communist
could get to what was going on. But I never lost the bitter
feeling that the opportunities of study which I made for
myself were wasted, because I could not hand them on to
some other Englishman, whose education and training would
have enabled him to make a better, a fuller use of them.
Nor would it have been difficult for such a man to get the
opportunities which were given to me when, by sheer
persistence in enquiry, I had overcome the hostility which I
at first encountered as the correspondent of a "bourgeois"
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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 Mansion by Henry van Dyke: to know what country it was and where the people were going.
He had a faint premonition of what it must be, but he wished to
be sure.
So he rose from the stone where he was sitting, and came down
through
the short grass and the lavender flowers, toward a passing group
of people.
One of them turned to meet him, and held out his hand. It was an
old man,
under whose white beard and brows John Weightman thought he saw
a suggestion of the face of the village doctor who had cared for
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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 Professor by Charlotte Bronte: effect immediately; Hunsden spoke French in reply; I had not
heard him speak that language before; he managed it very well. I
retired to the window-seat; Mr. Hunsden, at his hostess's
invitation, occupied a chair near the hearth; from my position I
could see them both, and the room too, at a glance. The room was
so clean and bright, it looked like a little polished cabinet; a
glass filled with flowers in the centre of the table, a fresh
rose in each china cup on the mantelpiece gave it an air of FETE,
Frances was serious, and Mr. Hunsden subdued, but both mutually
polite; they got on at the French swimmingly: ordinary topics
were discussed with great state and decorum; I thought I had
The Professor |
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 Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: than three times, win or lose. If he won, which usually happened, he
drank a tumbler of punch and went home to his garret; but by that time
he talked of smashing the ultras and the Bourbon body-guard, and
trolled out, as he mounted the staircase, "We watch to save the
Empire!" His poor mother, hearing him, used to think "How gay Philippe
is to-night!" and then she would creep up and kiss him, without
complaining of the fetid odors of the punch, and the brandy, and the
pipes.
"You ought to be satisfied with me, my dear mother," he said, towards
the end of January; "I lead the most regular of lives."
The colonel had dined five times at a restaurant with some of his army
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