| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: At this point the borders of Grunewald descend somewhat steeply,
here and there breaking into crags; and this shaggy and trackless
country stands in a bold contrast to the cultivated plain below. It
was traversed at that period by two roads alone; one, the imperial
highway, bound to Brandenau in Gerolstein, descended the slope
obliquely and by the easiest gradients. The other ran like a fillet
across the very forehead of the hills, dipping into savage gorges,
and wetted by the spray of tiny waterfalls. Once it passed beside a
certain tower or castle, built sheer upon the margin of a formidable
cliff, and commanding a vast prospect of the skirts of Grunewald and
the busy plains of Gerolstein. The Felsenburg (so this tower was
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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 Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: property with far more severity than offences against his person,
and property is still the test of complete citizenship. The
industry necessary for the making money is also very demoralising.
In a community like ours, where property confers immense
distinction, social position, honour, respect, titles, and other
pleasant things of the kind, man, being naturally ambitious, makes
it his aim to accumulate this property, and goes on wearily and
tediously accumulating it long after he has got far more than he
wants, or can use, or enjoy, or perhaps even know of. Man will
kill himself by overwork in order to secure property, and really,
considering the enormous advantages that property brings, one is
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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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: things from Mr. Stephen Graham in the Dark Forest of Russia. All
this is quite over and above such writing of facts at first hand
as Mr. Patrick McGill and a dozen other real experiencing
soldiers--not to mention the soldiers' letters Mr. James Milne
has collected, or the unforgettable and immortal /Prisoner of
War/ of Mr. Arthur Green--or such admirable war
correspondents' work as Mr. Philip Gibbs or Mr. Washburne has
done. Some of us writers--I can answer for one--have made our
Tour of the Fronts with a very understandable diffidence. For my
own part I did not want to go. I evaded a suggestion that I
should go in 1915. I travel badly, I speak French and Italian
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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 Poems by Oscar Wilde: the silent lake
And slink into the vault and make the Pyramid
your lupanar
Till from each black sarcophagus rose up the
painted swathed dead?
Or did you lure unto your bed the ivory-horned
Tragelaphos?
Or did you love the god of flies who plagued
the Hebrews and was splashed
With wine unto the waist? or Pasht, who had
green beryls for her eyes?
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