| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: point where, at the other end of the village, the road
rises above the church and skirts the black hemlock
wall enclosing the cemetery.
The little June wind, frisking down the street, shook
the doleful fringes of the Hatchard spruces, caught the
straw hat of a young man just passing under them, and
spun it clean across the road into the duck-pond.
As he ran to fish it out the girl on lawyer Royall's
doorstep noticed that he was a stranger, that he wore
city clothes, and that he was laughing with all his
teeth, as the young and careless laugh at such mishaps.
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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 Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: "The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream,
anyhow--I had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in,
to group themselves about. Millions of men who had never seen me
were ready to do things and risk things because of their confidence
in me. I had been playing that game for years, that big laborious
game, that vague, monstrous political game amidst intrigues and
betrayals, speech and agitation. It was a vast weltering world,
and at last I had a sort of leadership against the Gang--you know
it was called the Gang--a sort of compromise of scoundrelly
projects and base ambitions and vast public emotional stupidities
and catch-words--the Gang that kept the world noisy and blind year
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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 Dreams by Olive Schreiner: When on the sharp stones Life cut her feet, he wiped the blood upon his
garments, and kissed the wounded feet with his little lips. When in the
desert Love lay down faint (for Love itself grows faint), he ran over the
hot sand with his little naked feet, and even there in the desert found
water in the holes in the rocks to moisten Love's lips with. He was no
burden--he never weighted them; he only helped them forward on their
journey.
When they came to the dark ravine where the icicles hang from the rocks--
for Love and Life must pass through strange drear places--there, where all
is cold, and the snow lies thick, he took their freezing hands and held
them against his beating little heart, and warmed them--and softly he drew
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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 Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: observe, that as there be some barren does that are good in summer, so
there be some barren Trouts that are good in winter; but there are not
many that are so; for usually they be in their perfection in the month of
May, and decline with the buck. Now you are to take notice, that in
several countries, as in Germany, and in other parts, compared to ours,
fish do differ much in their bigness, and shape, and other ways; and so
do Trouts. It is well known that in the Lake Leman, the Lake of Geneva,
there are Trouts taken of three cubits long; as is affirmed by Gesner, a
writer of good credit: and Mercator says, the Trouts that are taken in the
Lake of Geneva are a great part of the merchandize of that famous city.
And you are further to know, that there be certain waters that breed
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