| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: manned with thirty fellow adventurers he fell upon a great ship
off Cape Corrientes, manned with threescore and ten men, all
told.
Her he assaulted again and again, beaten off with the very
pressure of numbers only to renew the assault, until the
Spaniards who survived, some fifty in all, surrendered to twenty
living pirates, who poured upon their decks like a score of
blood-stained, powder-grimed devils.
They lost their vessel by recapture, and Bartholomew Portuguese
barely escaped with his life through a series of almost
unbelievable adventures. But no sooner had he fairly escaped from
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: an antique Roman! For in those halcyon days of the drama no
archaeology troubled the stage, or distressed the critics, and our
inartistic grandfathers sat peaceably in a stifling atmosphere of
anachronisms, and beheld with the calm complacency of the age of
prose an Iachimo in powder and patches, a Lear in lace ruffles, and
a Lady Macbeth in a large crinoline. I can understand archaeology
being attacked on the ground of its excessive realism, but to
attack it as pedantic seems to be very much beside the mark.
However, to attack it for any reason is foolish; one might just as
well speak disrespectfully of the equator. For archaeology, being
a science, is neither good nor bad, but a fact simply. Its value
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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 Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: John looked perplexed.
"Do not worry," said Poirot smoothly. "I assure you that you
need not let it trouble you. Since you are so kind, let us go
and have some breakfast."
Every one was assembled in the dining-room. Under the
circumstances, we were naturally not a cheerful party. The
reaction after a shock is always trying, and I think we were all
suffering from it. Decorum and good breeding naturally enjoined
that our demeanour should be much as usual, yet I could not help
wondering if this self-control were really a matter of great
difficulty. There were no red eyes, no signs of secretly
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
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 Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: through it, to get rid of it by showing the peasant, with
a clear plan in our hands that he can understand, that we are
not altogether fools in this matter and that we understand
more than he does." He then sets out the argument which he
himself had found successful in persuading the peasants to
do things the reward for which would not be obvious the
moment they were done. He says, "I compared our State
economy to a colossal building with scores of stories and
tens of thousands of rooms. The whole building has been
half smashed; in places the roof has tumbled down, the
beams have rotted, the ceilings are tumbling, the drains and
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