| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: scratchings on stone or bone and left no monuments to show that
they had been.
These early drifts we conjecture and know must have occurred, just
as we know that the first upright-walking brutes were descended
from some kin of the quadrumana through having developed "a pair
of great toes out of two opposable thumbs." Dominated by fear,
and by their very fear accelerating their development, these early
ancestors of ours, suffering hunger-pangs very like the ones we
experience to-day, drifted on, hunting and being hunted, eating
and being eaten, wandering through thousand-year-long odysseys of
screaming primordial savagery, until they left their skeletons in
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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 Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: combines the special qualities of the women of other countries and
gives unity to the mixture by her wit, that truly French product,
which enlivens, sanctions, justifies, and varies all, thus relieving
the monotony of a sentiment which rests on a single tense of a single
verb. The Frenchwoman loves always, without abatement and without
fatigue, in public or in solitude. In public she uses a tone which has
meaning for one only; she speaks by silence; she looks at you with
lowered eyelids. If the occasion prevents both speech and look she
will use the sand and write a word with the point of her little foot;
her love will find expression even in sleep; in short, she bends the
world to her love. The Englishwoman, on the contrary, makes her love
The Lily of the Valley |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: like a clumsy dentist. When the big men, romping and swearing a moment
before, hand across their sixpence, and stand before him, they are suddenly
serious, dumb, timid, almost blushing as the Professor's quick hand notches
the printed card. They are like little children caught playing in a
forbidden garden by the owner, stepping from behind a tree.
The top of the hill is reached. How hot it is! How fine it is! The
public-house is open, and the crowd presses in. The mother sits on the
pavement edge with her baby, and the father brings her out a glass of dark,
brownish stuff, and then savagely elbows his way in again. A reek of beer
floats from the public-house, and a loud clatter and rattle of voices.
The wind has dropped, and the sun burns more fiercely than ever. Outside
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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 Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: Long bills, and answers, stuffed with lies
Demur, imparlance, and essoign,
The parties ne'er could issue join:
For sixteen years the cause was spun,
And then stood where it first begun.
Now, gentle Clio, sing or say,
What Venus meant by this delay.
The goddess, much perplexed in mind,
To see her empire thus declined,
When first this grand debate arose
Above her wisdom to compose,
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