| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: is the bondslave, the zealot of his school; he dreams of an advance
in art like what there is in science; he thinks of past things as
radically dead; he thinks a form can be outlived: a strange
immersion in his own history; a strange forgetfulness of the
history of the race! Meanwhile, by a glance at his own works
(could he see them with the eager eyes of his readers) much of this
illusion would be dispelled. For while he holds all the poor
little orthodoxies of the day - no poorer and no smaller than those
of yesterday or to-morrow, poor and small, indeed, only so far as
they are exclusive - the living quality of much that he has done is
of a contrary, I had almost said of a heretical, complexion. A
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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 Odyssey by Homer: arrows from the ships, and dividing ourselves into three bands
began to shoot the goats. Heaven sent us excellent sport; I had
twelve ships with me, and each ship got nine goats, while my own
ship had ten; thus through the livelong day to the going down of
the sun we ate and drank our fill, and we had plenty of wine
left, for each one of us had taken many jars full when we sacked
the city of the Cicons, and this had not yet run out. While we
were feasting we kept turning our eyes towards the land of the
Cyclopes, which was hard by, and saw the smoke of their stubble
fires. We could almost fancy we heard their voices and the
bleating of their sheep and goats, but when the sun went down
The Odyssey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: Now and then some bold child would be allowed the honour, and
Purun Bhagat would hear him drop the bowl and run as fast as his
little legs could carry him, but the Bhagat never came down to
the village. It was laid out like a map at his feet. He could
see the evening gatherings, held on the circle of the threshing-
floors, because that was the only level ground; could see the
wonderful unnamed green of the young rice, the indigo blues of
the Indian corn, the dock-like patches of buckwheat, and, in its
season, the red bloom of the amaranth, whose tiny seeds, being
neither grain nor pulse, make a food that can be lawfully eaten
by Hindus in time of fasts.
The Second Jungle Book |
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 Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: happens when a necessity of humanity is opposed by a law, it acts
by less known, underground and hidden means.''
Moreover, the cellular system is unequal in its application, for
difference of race has much to say to it, and in fact it is a
clumsy machinery of the northern races, repugnant to those of the
south, more dependent on the open air and light. Apart from that,
isolation has very different effects amongst people of the same
nation, according to the different vocations of the
prisoners, especially of occasional offenders. In this connection
the testimony of Faucher, Ferrus, and Tarde is thoroughly just,
that in prison administration we ought to observe a distinction
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