| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: have no money on board!' I own I was inspired with sensible
repugnance; even with alarm. The ship was manifestly in their
power; we had women on board; I knew nothing of my guests beyond
the fact that they were cannibals; the Directory (my only guide)
was full of timid cautions; and as for the trader, whose presence
might else have reassured me, were not whites in the Pacific the
usual instigators and accomplices of native outrage? When he reads
this confession, our kind friend, Mr. Regler, can afford to smile.
Later in the day, as I sat writing up my journal, the cabin was
filled from end to end with Marquesans: three brown-skinned
generations, squatted cross-legged upon the floor, and regarding me
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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 Mountains by Stewart Edward White: brush, when he could get nothing else; and I have
even known him philosophically to fill up on dry
pine-needles. There is no nutrition in dry pine-
needles, but Bullet got a satisfyingly full belly. On the
trail a well-seasoned horse will be always on the forage,
snatching here a mouthful, yonder a single spear of
grass, and all without breaking the regularity of his
gait, or delaying the pack-train behind him. At the
end of the day's travel he is that much to the good.
By long observation thus you will construct your
ideal of the mountain horse, and in your selection
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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 Critias by Plato: districts; and when they had peopled them they tended us, their nurselings
and possessions, as shepherds tend their flocks, excepting only that they
did not use blows or bodily force, as shepherds do, but governed us like
pilots from the stern of the vessel, which is an easy way of guiding
animals, holding our souls by the rudder of persuasion according to their
own pleasure;--thus did they guide all mortal creatures. Now different
gods had their allotments in different places which they set in order.
Hephaestus and Athene, who were brother and sister, and sprang from the
same father, having a common nature, and being united also in the love of
philosophy and art, both obtained as their common portion this land, which
was naturally adapted for wisdom and virtue; and there they implanted brave
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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 House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: I am inspired and young . . . and though I see
You sitting alone there, dark, with shut eyes crying,
I bask in the light, and in your hate of me . . .
Failure . . . well, the time comes soon or later . . .
The night must come . . . and I'll be one who clings,
Desperately, to hold the applause, one instant,--
To keep some youngster waiting in the wings.
The music changes tone . . . a room is darkened,
Someone is moving . . . the crack of white light widens,
And all is dark again; till suddenly falls
A wandering disk of light on floor and walls,
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