| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: it began and then it changed to warm apricot, and that faded to the colour
of a brown egg and then to a deep creamy.
"All the same, my dear," she said surprisingly, "freedom's best!" Her
soft, fat chuckle sounded like a purr. "Freedom's best," said Mrs. Stubbs
again.
Freedom! Alice gave a loud, silly little titter. She felt awkward. Her
mind flew back to her own kitching. Ever so queer! She wanted to be back
in it again.
Chapter 1.IX.
A strange company assembled in the Burnells' washhouse after tea. Round
the table there sat a bull, a rooster, a donkey that kept forgetting it was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: through no wantonness of his own, he is even to be commanded; for
words cannot describe how far more necessary it is that a man
should support his family, than that he should attain to - or
preserve - distinction in the arts. But if the pressure comes,
through his own fault, he has stolen, and stolen under trust, and
stolen (which is the worst of all) in such a way that no law can
reach him.
And now you may perhaps ask me, if the debutant artist is to have
no thought of money, and if (as is implied) he is to expect no
honours from the State, he may not at least look forward to the
delights of popularity? Praise, you will tell me, is a savoury
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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 Laches by Plato: not. They may predict results, but cannot tell whether they are really
terrible; only the courageous man can tell that.' Laches draws the
inference that the courageous man is either a soothsayer or a god.
Again, (2) in Nicias' way of speaking, the term 'courageous' must be denied
to animals or children, because they do not know the danger. Against this
inversion of the ordinary use of language Laches reclaims, but is in some
degree mollified by a compliment to his own courage. Still, he does not
like to see an Athenian statesman and general descending to sophistries of
this sort. Socrates resumes the argument. Courage has been defined to be
intelligence or knowledge of the terrible; and courage is not all virtue,
but only one of the virtues. The terrible is in the future, and therefore
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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 Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: any time from one place to another, through ways
inclosed with trees, or over walls raised upon the
inland waters; and direct their course through wide
countries by the sight of green hills or scattered
buildings. Even in summer we have no means of
crossing the mountains, whose snows are never
dissolved; nor can remove to any distant residence,
but in our boats coasting the bays. Consider, Ajut,
a few summer-days, and a few winter-nights, and
the life of man is at an end. Night is the time of
ease and festivity, of revels and gaiety; but what
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