| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: Russians once anchored here and hunted sea-otter before the first
Yankee trader rounded the Horn, or the first Rocky Mountain
trapper thirsted across the "Great American Desert" and trickled
down the snowy Sierras to the sun-kissed land. No; we are not
resting our horses here on Humboldt Bay. We are writing this
article, gorging on abalones and mussels, digging clams, and
catching record-breaking sea-trout and rock-cod in the intervals
in which we are not sailing, motor-boating, and swimming in the
most temperately equable climate we have ever experienced.
These comfortably large counties! They are veritable empires.
Take Humboldt, for instance. It is three times as large as Rhode
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: Government. To Cerizet, as manager of the paper, it was rather too
evident that he was as a bird perched on a rotten bough; and then it
was that he promoted that nice little joint-stock company, and thereby
secured a couple of years in prison; he was caught, while more
ingenious swindlers succeeded in catching the public."
"We are acquainted with the more ingenious," said Bixiou; "let us say
no ill of the poor fellow; he was nabbed; Couture allowed them to
squeeze his cash-box; who would ever have thought it of him?"
"At all events, Cerizet was a low sort of fellow, a good deal damaged
by low debauchery. Now for the duel I spoke about. Never did two
tradesmen of the worst type, with the worst manners, the lowest pair
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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 Memorabilia by Xenophon: senses--giving him eyes to behold the visible word, and ears to catch
the intonations of sound? Or again, what good would there be in odours
if nostrils had not been bestowed upon us? what perception of sweet
things and pungent, and of all the pleasures of the palate, had not a
tongue been fashioned in us as an interpreter of the same? And besides
all this, do you not think this looks like a matter of foresight, this
closing of the delicate orbs of sight with eyelids as with folding
doors, which, when there is need to use them for any purpose, can be
thrown wide open and firmly closed again in sleep? and, that even the
winds of heaven may not visit them too roughly, this planting of the
eyelashes as a protecting screen?[6] this coping of the region above
The Memorabilia |
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 Phaedo by Plato: But then, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care
should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is
called life, but of eternity! And the danger of neglecting her from this
point of view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had only been the
end of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they
would have been happily quit not only of their body, but of their own evil
together with their souls. But now, inasmuch as the soul is manifestly
immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment
of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul when on her progress to the
world below takes nothing with her but nurture and education; and these are
said greatly to benefit or greatly to injure the departed, at the very
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