| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: lasted all day until the hour of return home from work.
Harry became very anxious that their marriage should take place.
He thought that, when the irrevocable step was taken, malevolence would
be disarmed, and that Nell would never feel safe until she was his wife.
James Starr, Simon, and Madge, were all of the same opinion,
and everyone counted the intervening days, for everyone suffered
from the most uncomfortable forebodings.
It was perfectly evident that nothing relating to Nell was indifferent
to this hidden foe, whom it was impossible to meet or to avoid.
Therefore it seemed quite possible that the solemn act of her marriage
with Harry might be the occasion of some new and dreadful outbreak
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley: beautiful a babe that any but King Acrisius would have had
pity on it. But he had no pity; for he took Danae and her
babe down to the seashore, and put them into a great chest
and thrust them out to sea, for the winds and the waves to
carry them whithersoever they would.
The north-west wind blew freshly out of the blue mountains,
and down the pleasant vale of Argos, and away and out to sea.
And away and out to sea before it floated the mother and her
babe, while all who watched them wept, save that cruel
father, King Acrisius.
So they floated on and on, and the chest danced up and down
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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 Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: Helen advised bed, and she went, not seeing Richard again.
She must have been very tired for she fell asleep at once,
but after an hour or two of dreamless sleep, she dreamt. She dreamt
that she was walking down a long tunnel, which grew so narrow
by degrees that she could touch the damp bricks on either side.
At length the tunnel opened and became a vault; she found
herself trapped in it, bricks meeting her wherever she turned,
alone with a little deformed man who squatted on the floor gibbering,
with long nails. His face was pitted and like the face of an animal.
The wall behind him oozed with damp, which collected into drops
and slid down. Still and cold as death she lay, not daring to move,
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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 Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: belief of the European in his own Kultur tends to be
fanatical and ruthless, and for this reason, as much as
for any other, the independence of extra-European
civilization is of real importance to the world, for it is
not by a dead uniformity that the world as a whole is
most enriched.
I have set forth strongly all the major difficulties
in the way of the preservation of the world's peace,
not because I believe these difficulties to be insuperable,
but, on the contrary, because I believe that they
can be overcome if they are recognized. A correct
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