| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: unless among its females it could also produce a Sophia Kovalevsky, a
George Eliot, or a Louise Michel; so, also, in the future, that higher and
more socialised human race we dream of can only come into existence,
because in both the sex forms have evolved together, now this sex and then
that, so to speak, catching up the ball of life and throwing it back to the
other, slightly if imperceptibly enlarging and beautifying it as it passes
through their hands. The fact that without the reaction of interevolution
between the sexes, there can be no real and permanent human advance;
without the enlarged deep-thinking Eve to bear him, no enlarged Adam;
without the enlarged widely sympathising Adam to beget her, no enlarged
widely comprehending Eve; without an enlarged Adam and an enlarged Eve, no
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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 Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: Agathe. "You do the things you like, while he is certainly not in his
right place."
"What did he leave it for?" demanded Joseph. "What can it matter to
him whether Louis the Eighteenth's bugs or Napoleon's cuckoos are on
the flag, if it is the flag of his country? France is France! For my
part, I'd paint for the devil. A soldier ought to fight, if he is a
soldier, for the love of his art. If he had stayed quietly in the
army, he would have been a general by this time."
"You are unjust to him," said Agathe, "your father, who adored the
Emperor, would have approved of his conduct. However, he has consented
to re-enter the army. God knows the grief it has caused your brother
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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 Human Drift by Jack London: the first mile he ran in the lead; and his worst is even extremely
worse than what you are thinking. Not that he is vicious. He is
merely a good-natured rogue who shakes hands for sugar, steps on
your toes out of sheer excessive friendliness, and just goes on
loving you in your harshest moments.
But he won't get out of the way. Also, whenever he is reproved
for being in the wrong, he accuses Milda of it and bites the back
of her neck. So bad has this become that whenever I yell
"Prince!" in a loud voice, Milda immediately rabbit-jumps to the
side, straight ahead, or sits down on the lead-bar. All of which
is quite disconcerting. Picture it yourself. You are swinging
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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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: perhaps, in this wild jumble. . . . Only you don't know a bit what
I am. I want to tell you what I am. I'm complex. . . . I'm
streaked."
I glanced at her, and she was regarding me with an expression of
blissful disregard for any meaning I was seeking to convey.
"You see," I said, "I'm a bad man."
She sounded a note of valiant incredulity.
Everything seemed to be slipping away from me. I pushed on to the
ugly facts that remained over from the wreck of my interpretation.
"What has held me back," I said, "is the thought that you could not
possibly understand certain things in my life. Men are not pure as
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