| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Cruise of the Jasper B. by Don Marquis: How?
Cleggett broke the silence.
"Let us go to the forecastle and have a look at that fellow," he
said, and led the way.
No one lagged as they left the hold. These were all brave men,
but there are times when the invisible, the incomprehensible,
will send a momentary chill to the heart of the most intrepid.
Cleggett found Lady Agatha, her own troubles for the time
forgotten, in the forecastle. She had lighted a lamp and was
bending over the wounded man, whose coat and waistcoat she had
removed. His clothing was a sop of blood. They cut his shirt and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Yet, as these days with those we compare,
Believe me, my friend, tho' the sorrows seem more
They are somehow more easy to bear.
And thou, faded Future, uncertain and frail,
As I cherish thy light in each draught,
His lamp is not more to the miner - their sail
Is not more to the crew on the raft.
For Hope can make feeble ones earnest and brave,
And, as forth thro' the years I look on,
Believe me, my friend, between this and the grave,
I see wonderful things to be done.
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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 Symposium by Xenophon: Antisthenes![97]
[97] See Diog. Laert. "Antisth." VI. i. 8; Plut. "Symp." ii. 1. 503.
Whereupon Antisthenes exclaimed: What! are you going to pass on the
business? will you devolve this art of yours on me as your successor,
Socrates?[98]
[98] Or, "going to give up business, and hand on the trade to me as
your successor?"
I will, upon my word, I will (he answered): since I see that you have
practised to some purpose, nay elaborated, an art which is the
handmaid to this other.
And what may that be? asked Antisthenes.
The Symposium |
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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: By little increments of realisation it was that the profounder
verities of the problem of socialism came to me. It helped me very
much that I had to go down to the Potteries several times to discuss
my future with my uncle and guardian; I walked about and saw Bursley
Wakes and much of the human aspects of organised industrialism at
close quarters for the first time. The picture of a splendid
Working Man cheated out of his innate glorious possibilities, and
presently to arise and dash this scoundrelly and scandalous system
of private ownership to fragments, began to give place to a
limitless spectacle of inefficiency, to a conception of millions of
people not organised as they should be, not educated as they should
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