| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: praemiis pollicitationibusque persuadet uti ad hostes transeat, et quid
fieri velit edocet. Qui ubi pro perfuga ad eos venit, timorem Romanorum
proponit, quibus angustiis ipse Caesar a Venetis prematur docet, eque
longius abesse quin proxima nocte Sabinus clam ex castris exercitum educat
et ad Caesarem auxilii ferendi causa proficiscatur. Quod ubi auditum est,
conclamant omnes occasionem negotii bene gerendi amittendam non esse: ad
castra iri oportere. Multae res ad hoc consilium Gallos hortabantur:
superiorum dierum Sabini cunctatio, perfugae confirmatio, inopia
cibariorum, cui rei paum diligenter ab iis erat provisum, spes Venetici
belli, et quod fere libenter. homines id quod volunt credunt. His rebus
adducti non prius Viridovicem reliquosque duces ex concilio dimittunt quam
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: Street.
Guy Pollock wrote to a cousin, a temporary army captain, a
confiding and buoyant lad who took Carol to tea-dances, and
laughed, as she had always wanted some one to laugh, about
nothing in particular. The captain introduced her to the
secretary of a congressman, a cynical young widow with many
acquaintances in the navy. Through her Carol met commanders
and majors, newspapermen, chemists and geographers and fiscal
experts from the bureaus, and a teacher who was a familiar
of the militant suffrage headquarters. The teacher took her
to headquarters. Carol never became a prominent suffragist.
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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 Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Her damsels, crying to their lady, `Lo!
Pelleas is dead--he told us--he that hath
His horse and armour: will ye let him in?
He slew him! Gawain, Gawain of the court,
Sir Gawain--there he waits below the wall,
Blowing his bugle as who should say him nay.'
And so, leave given, straight on through open door
Rode Gawain, whom she greeted courteously.
`Dead, is it so?' she asked. `Ay, ay,' said he,
`And oft in dying cried upon your name.'
`Pity on him,' she answered, `a good knight,
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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 The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: because I was adding my early sufferings on to the insensibility,
the selfishness of which I have seen thousands of instances in
the highest circles; or, perhaps, I was thinking of the obstacles
which hatred, envy, jealousy, and calumny raised up between me
and success. In Paris, when certain people see you ready to set
your foot in the stirrup, some pull your coat-tails, others
loosen the buckle of the strap that you may fall and crack your
skull; one wrenches off your horse's shoes, another steals your
whip, and the least treacherous of them all is the man whom you
see coming to fire his pistol at you point blank.
"You yourself, my dear boy, are clever enough to make
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