| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: worth it. Only, how was she to compound the business with her
new principles?
With the children's things to pack, luncheon to be got ready,
and the Fontainebleau pension to be telephoned to, there was
little time to waste on moral casuistry; and Susy asked herself
with a certain irony if the chronic lack of time to deal with
money difficulties had not been the chief cause of her previous
lapses. There was no time to deal with this question either; no
time, in short, to do anything but rush forward on a great gale
of plans and preparations, in the course of which she whirled
Nick forth to buy some charcuterie for luncheon, and telephone
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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 Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the forest with the wild din of their battle cries.
Ah! but it was a wondrous and inspiring sight--this battle
of the primordial apes and the great, white ape-man
with their ancestral foe, Sheeta, the panther.
In frenzied excitement, Teeka fairly danced upon
the limb which swayed beneath her great weight as she
urged on the males of her people, and Thaka, and Mumga,
and Kamma, with the other shes of the tribe of Kerchak,
added their shrill cries or fierce barkings to the
pandemonium which now reigned within the jungle.
Bitten and biting, tearing and torn, Sheeta battled
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: to my solitary guest-house, played the flageolet, and am now
writing to you. As yet, you see, I have seen nothing of the
settlement, and my crushing fatigue (though I believe that was
moral and a measure of my cowardice) and the doctor's opinion make
me think the pali hopeless. 'You don't look a strong man,' said
the doctor; 'but are you sound?' I told him the truth; then he
said it was out of the question, and if I were to get up at all, I
must be carried up. But, as it seems, men as well as horses
continually fall on this ascent: the doctor goes up with a change
of clothes - it is plain that to be carried would in itself be very
fatiguing to both mind and body; and I should then be at the
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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 A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: dared to say that he would rather see an England of ignoramuses than
an England of cowards and slaves. And if anyone did, it would be
necessary to point out that the antithesis is not a practical one, as
we have got at present an England of ignoramuses who are also cowards
and slaves, and extremely proud of it at that, because in school they
are taught to submit, with what they ridiculously call Oriental
fatalism (as if any Oriental has ever submitted more helplessly and
sheepishly to robbery and oppression than we Occidentals do), to be
driven day after day into compounds and set to the tasks they loathe
by the men they hate and fear, as if this were the inevitable destiny
of mankind. And naturally, when they grow up, they helplessly
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