| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: Citizens devoting their time to gymnastics and to the cultivation of
music are not to be found in Athens;[27] the sovereign People has
disestablished them,[28] not from any disbelief in the beauty and
honour of such training, but recognising the fact that these are
things the cultivation of which is beyond its power. On the same
principle, in the case of the coregia,[29] the gymnasiarchy, and the
trierarchy, the fact is recognised that it is the rich man who trains
the chorus, and the People for whom the chorus is trained; it is the
rich man who is trierarch or gymnasiarch, and the People that profits
by their labours.[30] In fact, what the People looks upon as its right
is to pocket the money.[31] To sing and run and dance and man the
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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 Europeans by Henry James: the effect of an explanation of the suppression of her earlier thought.
"You will never be anything but a child, dear brother."
"One would suppose that you, madam," answered Felix, laughing, "were a
thousand years old."
"I am--sometimes," said the Baroness.
"I will go, then, and announce to our cousins the arrival
of a personage so extraordinary. They will immediately come
and pay you their respects."
Eugenia paced the length of the room again, and then she
stopped before her brother, laying her hand upon his arm.
"They are not to come and see me," she said. "You are not
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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 Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: then a great lad drawing on to manhood, fierce in temper, well grown
and broad for his years.
We had journeyed seven days, for the way was long, and on the night of
the seventh day we came to a mountainous country in which there were
few kraals, for Chaka had eaten them all up years before. Perhaps you
know the place, my father. In it is a great and strange mountain. It
is haunted also, and named the Ghost Mountain, and on the top of it is
a grey peak rudely shaped like the head of an aged woman. Here in this
wild place we must sleep, for darkness drew on. Now we soon learned
that there were many lions in the rocks around, for we heard their
roaring and were much afraid, all except Umslopogaas, who feared
Nada the Lily |
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 Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: startled back by some suggestive question or some inexplicable
meaning in her eye. So they lived at cross purposes, a life full
of broken dialogue, challenging glances, and suppressed passion;
until, one day, he saw the woman slipping from the house in a veil,
followed her to the station, followed her in the train to the
seaside country, and out over the sandhills to the very place where
the murder was done. There she began to grope among the bents, he
watching her, flat upon his face; and presently she had something
in her hand - I cannot remember what it was, but it was deadly
evidence against the dreamer - and as she held it up to look at it,
perhaps from the shock of the discovery, her foot slipped, and she
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