| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: When they do homage to this simple peasant.
I'll in to counsel them; haply my presence
May well abate the over-merry spleen,
Which otherwise would grow into extremes.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. A bedchamber in the LORD'S house.
[SLY is discovered in a rich nightgown, with ATTENDANTS: some with
apparel, basin, ewer, and other appurtenances; and LORD, dressed
like a servant.]
SLY.
For God's sake! a pot of small ale.
The Taming of the Shrew |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: after a silence. "Thank you, Minnie."
Bonnet in hand, she moved toward the stairs, climbed them and went
into her room. Recently life had been growing increasingly calm
and less beset with doubts. For the first time, with Dick's coming
to live with them ten years before, a boy of twenty-two, she had
found a vicarious maternity and gloried in it. Recently she had
been very happy. The war was over and he was safely back; again
she could sew on his buttons and darn his socks, and turn down his
bed at night. He filled the old house with cheer and with vitality.
And, as David gave up more and more of the work, he took it on his
broad shoulders, efficient, tireless, and increasingly popular.
The Breaking Point |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: father-in-law of the present Regent. Yuan was in charge of an
army corps of 12,500 troops, but for him to have taken them even
at the command of the Emperor, without informing his superior
officer, would have meant the loss of his head at once. The first
thing then for him to do was to take this order to Jung Lu. Yuan
was in favour of reform, though he may not have approved of the
Emperor's methods. Jung Lu hastened to Prince Ching and they two
sped to the Empress Dowager in the Summer Palace where they laid
the whole matter before her. She hurried to Peking, boldly faced
and denounced the Emperor, took from him his seal of state, and
confined him a prisoner in the Winter Palace. Kang Yu-wei, 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 The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: there are many others more secret still which we ourselves
ignore. The greater part of our daily actions are the result of
hidden motives which escape our observation.
It is more especially with respect to those unconscious elements
which constitute the genius of a race that all the individuals
belonging to it resemble each other, while it is principally in
respect to the conscious elements of their character--the fruit
of education, and yet more of exceptional hereditary
conditions--that they differ from each other. Men the most
unlike in the matter of their intelligence possess instincts,
passions, and feelings that are very similar. In the case of
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