| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: and spire up skyward like smoke. Where their shadow touches,
colour dies out of the world. The air grows chill and deadly as
they advance. The trade-wind freshens, the trees begin to sigh,
and all the windmills in Monterey are whirling and creaking and
filling their cisterns with the brackish water of the sands. It
takes but a little while till the invasion is complete. The sea,
in its lighter order, has submerged the earth. Monterey is
curtained in for the night in thick, wet, salt, and frigid clouds,
so to remain till day returns; and before the sun's rays they
slowly disperse and retreat in broken squadrons to the bosom of the
sea. And yet often when the fog is thickest and most chill, a few
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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 Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: From her position she saw his head in front of the dark pyramid
of a magnolia-tree. With one foot raised on the rung of a chair,
and her elbow out in the attitude for sewing, her own figure possessed
the sublimity of a woman's of the early world, spinning the thread
of fate--the sublimity possessed by many women of the present
day who fall into the attitude required by scrubbing or sewing.
St. John looked at her.
"I suppose you've never paid any a compliment in the course
of your life," he said irrelevantly.
"I spoil Ridley rather," Helen considered.
"I'm going to ask you point blank--do you like me?"
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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 The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: "sooner or later each of us has to go, and that's a certingty." She
paused. "Now, can I bring you anything, Mrs Crane? A cup of tea? I know
it's no good offering you a little something to keep the cold out."
Grandma shook her head. "Nothing, thank you. We've got a few wine
biscuits, and Fenella has a very nice banana."
"Then I'll give you a look later on," said the stewardess, and she went
out, shutting the door.
What a very small cabin it was! It was like being shut up in a box with
grandma. The dark round eye above the washstand gleamed at them dully.
Fenella felt shy. She stood against the door, still clasping her luggage
and the umbrella. Were they going to get undressed in here? Already her
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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 Republic by Plato: appeared fourth and the second fifth. The spindle turns on the knees of
Necessity; and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren, who goes
round with them, hymning a single tone or note. The eight together form
one harmony; and round about, at equal intervals, there is another band,
three in number, each sitting upon her throne: these are the Fates,
daughters of Necessity, who are clothed in white robes and have chaplets
upon their heads, Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their
voices the harmony of the sirens--Lachesis singing of the past, Clotho of
the present, Atropos of the future; Clotho from time to time assisting with
a touch of her right hand the revolution of the outer circle of the whorl
or spindle, and Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner
The Republic |
