| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: or by his silence; and whether or no he did occasionally
bore her, it is probable that on the whole she liked him
only the better for his absense of embarrassed scruples.
Her visitors, coming in often while Newman sat there,
found a tall, lean, silent man in a half-lounging attitude,
who laughed out sometimes when no one had meant to be droll,
and remained grave in the presence of calculated witticisms,
for appreciation of which he had apparently not the proper culture.
It must be confessed that the number of subjects upon which Newman
had no ideas was extremely large, and it must be added that as regards
those subjects upon which he was without ideas he was also perfectly
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: passengers into another world. The negligence of the
employes is the cause of the misfortune. They declare
with one voice before the jury that ten or twelve years
before, their labor only lasted eight hours a day. During
the last five or six years it had been screwed up to
14, 18, and 20 hours, and under a specially severe pressure
of holiday-makers, at times of excursion trains, it
often lasted 40 or 50 hours without a break. They
were ordinary men, not Cyclops. At a certain point their
labor-power failed. Torpor seized them. Their brain
ceased to think, their eyes to see. The thoroughly
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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 To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: sea. Well, it looked as if he would do it too--so I
went. It looks to me sometimes as if I had been
born to them by a mistake--in that other hutch of
a house."
"Where ought you to have been born by
rights?" Bessie Carvil interrupted him, defiantly.
"In the open, upon a beach, on a windy night,"
he said, quick as lightning. Then he mused slowly.
"They were characters, both of them, by George;
and the old man keeps it up well--don't he? A
damned shovel on the--Hark! who's that mak-
To-morrow |
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 Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: They stood before his throne in silence, friends
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?'
Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint
As from beyond the limit of the world,
Like the last echo born of a great cry,
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice
Around a king returning from his wars.
Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb
Even to the highest he could climb, and saw,
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
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