| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: drive - John, who saw things little, remembered them less,
and could not have described them at all, beheld in his
mind's-eye the garden of the Lodge, detailed as in a map; he
went to and fro in it, feeding his terrors; he saw the
hollies, the snowy borders, the paths where he had sought
Alan, the high, conventual walls, the shut door - what! was
the door shut? Ay, truly, he had shut it - shut in his
money, his escape, his future life - shut it with these
hands, and none could now open it! He heard the snap of the
spring-lock like something bursting in his brain, and sat
astonied.
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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 Republic by Plato: patriarchal form of government, which a century or two later was succeeded
by an oligarchy of birth rather than of wealth, and in which wealth was
only the accident of the hereditary possession of land and power.
Sometimes this oligarchical government gave way to a government based upon
a qualification of property, which, according to Aristotle's mode of using
words, would have been called a timocracy; and this in some cities, as at
Athens, became the conducting medium to democracy. But such was not the
necessary order of succession in States; nor, indeed, can any order be
discerned in the endless fluctuation of Greek history (like the tides in
the Euripus), except, perhaps, in the almost uniform tendency from monarchy
to aristocracy in the earliest times. At first sight there appears to be a
The Republic |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: When Wilbur's business was done, and he was making ready to return
to the schooner, Hodgson remarked suddenly: "Hear you've got a
strapping fine girl aboard with you. Where did you fall in with
her?" and he winked and grinned.
Wilbur started as though struck, and took himself hurriedly away;
but the man's words had touched off in his brain a veritable mine
of conjecture. Moran in Magdalena Bay was consistent, congruous,
and fitted into her environment. But how--how was Wilbur to
explain her to San Francisco, and how could his behavior seem else
than ridiculous to the men of his club and to the women whose
dinner invitations he was wont to receive? They could not
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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 Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: BENTLEY. | [_in a whisper_] Oh, I say! |
| |
JOHNNY. | By George! |
| | _All
LORD SUMMERHAYS| A lady! | to-
| | gether._
HYPATIA. | A woman! |
| |
TARLETON. | [_to Percival_] You never told me-- |
| |
PERCIVAL. | I hadnt the least idea-- |
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