| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: that restless energy, that with us is strength, would become
weakness. Even in our own time certain tendencies and desires,
once necessary to survival, are a constant source of failure.
Physical courage and the love of battle, for instance, are no
great help--may even be hindrances--to a civilized man. And
in a state of physical balance and security, power, intellectual
as well as physical, would be out of place. For countless years
I judged there had been no danger of war or solitary violence, no
danger from wild beasts, no wasting disease to require strength
of constitution, no need of toil. For such a life, what we
should call the weak are as well equipped as the strong, are
The Time Machine |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: dried dates, oats, and powder and shot, and to fasten a scimiter to
his waist, he leaped on to a horse, and spurred on vigorously in the
direction where he thought to find the French army. So impatient was
he to see a bivouac again that he pressed on the already tired courser
at such speed, that its flanks were lacerated with his spurs, and at
last the poor animal died, leaving the Frenchman alone in the desert.
After walking some time in the sand with all the courage of an escaped
convict, the soldier was obliged to stop, as the day had already
ended. In spite of the beauty of an Oriental sky at night, he felt he
had not strength enough to go on. Fortunately he had been able to find
a small hill, on the summit of which a few palm trees shot up into the
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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 Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: "There is very little of it," his son remarked.
Though Bartolommeo could no longer speak, he could still hear and
see. When those words dropped from Don Juan, his head turned with
appalling quickness, his neck was twisted like the throat of some
marble statue which the sculptor had condemned to remain
stretched out for ever, the wide eyes had come to have a ghastly
fixity.
He was dead, and in death he lost his last and sole illusion.
He had sought a shelter in his son's heart, and it had proved to
be a sepulchre, a pit deeper than men dig for their dead. The
hair on his head had risen and stiffened with horror, his
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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 Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot: is not so likely to be brought down by hostile fire. There
is another point in its favour. The experience of the war
has proved that the numerically inferior enemy prefers to
carry out his naval operations under the cover of the mist
and haze which settle upon the water, and yet are of
sufficient depth to conceal his identity and composition.
Such mists as a rule comprise a relatively thin bank of
low-lying vapour, which while enveloping the surface of the
water in an impenetrable pall, yet permits the mast-heads
of the vessels to stand out clearly, although they cannot
be detected from the water-level or even from the control
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