| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: Great Friend whom some day they will need more and understand and
know better. That is as much as most children need. The phrases of
religion put too early into their mouths may become a cant,
something worse than blasphemy.
Yet children are sometimes very near to God. Creative passion stirs
in their play. At times they display a divine simplicity. But it
does not follow that therefore they should be afflicted with
theological formulae or inducted into ceremonies and rites that they
may dislike or misinterpret. If by any accident, by the death of a
friend or a distressing story, the thought of death afflicts a
child, then he may begin to hear of God, who takes those that serve
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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 Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: conducted me to a back room, where he told me he
always breakfasted when he had not great company.
On the floor where we sat lay a carpet covered
with a cloth, of which Prospero ordered his servant
to lift up a corner, that I might contemplate the
brightness of the colours, and the elegance of the
texture, and asked me whether I had ever seen any
thing so fine before? I did not gratify his folly with
any outcries of admiration, but coldly bade the
footman let down the cloth.
We then sat down, and I began to hope that
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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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James: recognised him than the old woman turned away; but just with this
growth of opportunity came a felt strangeness that stayed him in
the very act of laying his hand on his friend's arm. It lasted but
the instant, only that space sufficed for the flash of a wild
question. Was NOT Mrs. Creston dead? - the ambiguity met him there
in the short drop of her husband's voice, the drop conjugal, if it
ever was, and in the way the two figures leaned to each other.
Creston, making a step to look at something else, came nearer,
glanced at him, started and exclaimed - behaviour the effect of
which was at first only to leave Stransom staring, staring back
across the months at the different face, the wholly other face, 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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: reward before the terrible reality broke upon him.
Lois, over in the damp, fresh-smelling lumber-yard, sat coiled up
in one of the creviced houses made by the jutting boards. She
remembered how she used to play in them, before she went into the
mill. The mill,--even now, with the vague dread of some
uncertain evil to come, the mill absorbed all fear in its old
hated shadow. Whatever danger was coming to them lay in it, came
from it, she knew, in her confused, blurred way of thinking. It
loomed up now, with the square patch of ashen sky above, black,
heavy with years of remembered agony and loss. In Lois's
hopeful, warm life this was the one uncomprehended monster. Her
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
