| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: prison, would also be fortunate enough in penetrating to the
prisoner himself.
Whilst Cornelius, debating this point within himself, was
building all sorts of castles in the air, and was struggling
between hope and fear, the shutter of the grating in the
door opened, and Rosa, beaming with joy, and beautiful in
her pretty national costume -- but still more beautiful from
the grief which for the last five months had blanched her
cheeks -- pressed her little face against the wire grating
of the window, saying to him, --
"Oh, sir, sir! here I am!"
The Black Tulip |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: it is the means by which one alters one's past. The Greeks thought
that impossible. They often say in their Gnomic aphorisms, 'Even
the Gods cannot alter the past.' Christ showed that the commonest
sinner could do it, that it was the one thing he could do. Christ,
had he been asked, would have said - I feel quite certain about it
- that the moment the prodigal son fell on his knees and wept, he
made his having wasted his substance with harlots, his swine-
herding and hungering for the husks they ate, beautiful and holy
moments in his life. It is difficult for most people to grasp the
idea. I dare say one has to go to prison to understand it. If so,
it may be worth while going to prison.
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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 Call of the Wild by Jack London: his way forward slowly toward where the harnesses were being put
on his mates. He would advance his fore legs and drag up his body
with a sort of hitching movement, when he would advance his fore
legs and hitch ahead again for a few more inches. His strength
left him, and the last his mates saw of him he lay gasping in the
snow and yearning toward them. But they could hear him mournfully
howling till they passed out of sight behind a belt of river
timber.
Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retraced
his steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. A
revolver-shot rang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whips
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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 Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: and decision, and a cool, calm courage that no peril can shake.
Give a man the merest trifle of pluck to start with, and by the time
he has become a pilot he cannot be unmanned by any danger a steamboat
can get into; but one cannot quite say the same for judgment.
Judgment is a matter of brains, and a man must START with a good
stock of that article or he will never succeed as a pilot.
The growth of courage in the pilot-house is steady all the time,
but it does not reach a high and satisfactory condition until
some time after the young pilot has been 'standing his own watch,'
alone and under the staggering weight of all the responsibilities
connected with the position. When an apprentice has become pretty
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