| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: present are an almost intolerable nuisance. One cannot say "God"
but some tout is instantly seeking to pluck one into his
particular cave of flummery and orthodoxy. What a rational man
means by God is just God. The more you define and argue about
God the more he remains the same simple thing. Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, modern Hindu religious thought, all agree in
declaring that there is one God, master and leader of all
mankind, in unending conflict with cruelty, disorder, folly and
waste. To my mind, it follows immediately that there can be no
king, no government of any sort, which is not either a
subordinate or a rebel government, a local usurpation, in the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: drooling chaps, under this northern shore quaffs a deep draught of
the once scorned water, and passes round the cup with the
ejaculation tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r--oonk, tr-r-r-oonk! and straightway
comes over the water from some distant cove the same password
repeated, where the next in seniority and girth has gulped down to
his mark; and when this observance has made the circuit of the
shores, then ejaculates the master of ceremonies, with satisfaction,
tr-r-r-oonk! and each in his turn repeats the same down to the least
distended, leakiest, and flabbiest paunched, that there be no
mistake; and then the howl goes round again and again, until the sun
disperses the morning mist, and only the patriarch is not under the
Walden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: As peacemaker to reconcile your feud?
[Enter JOCASTA.]
JOCASTA
Misguided princes, why have ye upraised
This wordy wrangle? Are ye not ashamed,
While the whole land lies striken, thus to voice
Your private injuries? Go in, my lord;
Go home, my brother, and forebear to make
A public scandal of a petty grief.
CREON
My royal sister, Oedipus, thy lord,
Oedipus Trilogy |
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 The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: band, would often say, "I do not know myself. Was I to wait till the
age of seventy-two to embark as pilot on board the Belle Emilie after
twenty years of matrimonial galleys?"
The conduct of the young Countess was marked by such strictness that
the most clear-sighted criticism had no fault to find with her.
Lookers on chose to think that the vice-admiral had reserved the right
of disposing of his fortune to keep his wife more tightly in hand; but
this was a notion as insulting to the uncle as to the niece. Their
conduct was indeed so delicately judicious that the men who were most
interested in guessing the secrets of the couple could never decide
whether the old Count regarded her as a wife or as a daughter. He was
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