| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: on which occasion they always breakfast with the Lord Mayor in their
scarlet robes and wigs, the Lord Mayor and aldermen are also in
their furred scarlet robes and the Lady Mayoress presents the judges
with enormous bouquets of the richest flowers. We were invited to
this breakfast, and I found it very entertaining. I was next the
High Sheriff, who was very desirous that we should stay a few hours
and go to the castle and see the court opened and listen to a case
or two. The High Sheriff of a county is a great character and has a
carriage and liveries as grand as the Queen's. After breakfast we
bade adieu to our York friends, and set off with our big bouquets
(for the distribution was extended to us) for home.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: we must owe to ourselves. Our own spirit must vitalize it. Our own
heart must feel it. For we are not passive machines. We are not to
be lectured, guided and molded this way or that. We are alive and
intelligent, we women, no less than men, and we must awaken to the
essential realization that we are living beings, endowed with will,
choice, comprehension, and that every step in life must be taken at
our own initiative.
Moral and sexual balance in civilization will only be established by
the assertion and expression of power on the part of women. This power
will not be found in any futile seeking for economic independence or
in the aping of men in industrial and business pursuits, nor by
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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 Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: were now defending what, a few days before, they had
vehemently attacked.
The great strength of the Communist Party is comparable to
the strength of the Jesuits, who, similarly, put themselves
and their opinions at the disposal of the body politic of their
fellow members. Until a decision had been made, a
Communist is perfectly free to do his best to prevent it being
made, to urge alterations in it, or to supply a rival decision,
but once it has been made he will support it without
changing his private opinion. In all mixed congresses, rather
than break the party discipline, he will give his vote for it,
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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 Juana by Honore de Balzac: well that no flowers grew for her along the way of that painful
journey.
She married Diard. As for the quartermaster, though he had no grace in
Juana's eyes, we may well absolve him. He loved her distractedly. The
Marana, so keen to know the signs of love, had recognized in that man
the accents of passion and the brusque nature, the generous impulses,
that are common to Southerners. In the paroxysm of her anger and her
distress she had thought such qualities enough for her daughter's
happiness.
The first days of this marriage were apparently happy; or, to express
one of those latent facts, the miseries of which are buried by women
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