| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: of everything else. Nevertheless, as St. John said, it was love that
made her understand this, for she had never felt this independence,
this calm, and this certainty until she fell in love with him,
and perhaps this too was love. She wanted nothing else.
For perhaps two minutes Miss Allan had been standing at a little distance
looking at the couple lying back so peacefully in their arm-chairs.
She could not make up her mind whether to disturb them or not,
and then, seeming to recollect something, she came across the hall.
The sound of her approach woke Terence, who sat up and rubbed his eyes.
He heard Miss Allan talking to Rachel.
"Well," she was saying, "this is very nice. It is very nice indeed.
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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 Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: foundation. The vivacity of these images seemed to prove to me
that my imaginations were a reality. One would have said that a
demon, against my will, was inventing and breathing into me the
most terrible fictions. A conversation which dated a long time
back, with the brother of Troukhatchevsky, I remembered at that
moment, in a sort of ecstasy, and it tore my heart as I connected
it with the musician and my wife. Yes, it was very long ago.
The brother of Troukhatchevsky, answering my questions as to
whether he frequented disreputable houses, said that a
respectable man does not go where he may contract a disease, in a
low and unclean spot, when one can find an honest woman. And
The Kreutzer Sonata |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: There would be the civilization that two centuries must have
wrought upon our English cousins as they had upon us. There
would be mighty cities, cultivated fields, happy people.
There we would be welcomed as long-lost brothers. There
would we find a great nation anxious to learn of the world
beyond their side of thirty, as I had been anxious to learn
of that which lay beyond our side of the dead line.
I turned back toward the boat.
"Come, men!" I said. "We will go up the river and fill our
casks with fresh water, search for food and fuel, and then
tomorrow be in readiness to push on toward the east. I am
Lost Continent |
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 Human Drift by Jack London: Japan was stationary. There seemed no way of increasing her food-
getting efficiency. Then, sixty years ago, came Commodore Perry,
knocking down her doors and letting in the knowledge and machinery
of the superior food-getting efficiency of the Western world.
Immediately upon this rise in subsistence began the rise of
population; and it is only the other day that Japan, finding her
population once again pressing against subsistence, embarked,
sword in hand, on a westward drift in search of more room. And,
sword in hand, killing and being killed, she has carved out for
herself Formosa and Korea, and driven the vanguard of her drift
far into the rich interior of Manchuria.
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