| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: sleep. This is supposed to protect them from vice; but as it also
protects them from poetry, literature, music, meditation and prayer,
it may be dismissed with the obvious remark that if boarding schools
are places whose keepers are driven to such monstrous measures lest
more abominable things should happen, then the sooner boarding schools
are violently abolished the better. It is true that society may make
physical claims on the child as well as mental ones: the child must
learn to walk, to use a knife and fork, to swim, to ride a bicycle, to
acquire sufficient power of self-defence to make an attack on it an
arduous and uncertain enterprise, perhaps to fly. What as a matter of
common-sense it clearly has not a right to do is to make this an
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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 Death of the Lion by Henry James: seeing Neil Paraday I wanted her also, inconsequently, to remain in
the house. I was at any rate far from desiring to hustle her off.
As Mrs. Weeks Wimbush, upstairs, was still saving our friend in her
own way, I asked my young lady to let me briefly relate, in
illustration of my point, the little incident of my having gone
down into the country for a profane purpose and been converted on
the spot to holiness. Sinking again into her chair to listen she
showed a deep interest in the anecdote. Then thinking it over
gravely she returned with her odd intonation: "Yes, but you do see
him!" I had to admit that this was the case; and I wasn't so
prepared with an effective attenuation as I could have wished. She
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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 Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: you have only to go and live a few years in the Upper or Lower Alps,
in some hole of a town where everybody will like you, and your wife
will seduce everybody; and this,' I added, 'you cannot fail to obtain,
especially if you give your dear Celeste to some man who can influence
the Chamber.' Good reasons, stated in jest, have the merit of
penetrating deeper into some minds than if they were given soberly. So
Colleville and I became the best friends in the world. Didn't you hear
him say to me at table, 'Rascal! you have stolen my speech'? To-night
we shall be theeing and thouing each other. I intend to have a choice
little supper-party soon, where artists, tied to the proprieties at
home, always compromise themselves. I'll invite him, and that will
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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 Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: Bertie and Billy had lunched at Mattapan quite happily on cold ham, cold
pie, and doughnuts. Mattapan, not being accustomed to such lilies of
the field, stared at their clothes and general glory, but observed that
they could eat the native bill-of-fare as well as anybody. They found
some good, cool beer, moreover, and spoke to several people of the
Bird-in-Hand, and got several answers: for instance, that the
Bird-in-Hand was at Hingham; that it was at Nantasket; that they had
better inquire for it at South Braintree; that they had passed it a mile
back; and that there was no such place. If you would gauge the
intelligence of our population, inquire your way in a rural
neighborhood. With these directions they took up their journey after an
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