| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: in other things too--partly in there being scarce a spot at
Weatherend without something to stay behind for. It was in the way
the autumn day looked into the high windows as it waned; the way
the red light, breaking at the close from under a low sombre sky,
reached out in a long shaft and played over old wainscots, old
tapestry, old gold, old colour. It was most of all perhaps in the
way she came to him as if, since she had been turned on to deal
with the simpler sort, he might, should he choose to keep the whole
thing down, just take her mild attention for a part of her general
business. As soon as he heard her voice, however, the gap was
filled up and the missing link supplied; the slight irony he
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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 Touchstone by Edith Wharton: and the "distinguished mourners" who had formed the escort of the
famous writer knew nothing of the woman they were committing to
the grave. Glennard could not even remember at what season she
had been buried; but his mood indulged the fancy that it must have
been on some such day of harsh sunlight, the incisive February
brightness that gives perspicuity without warmth. The white
avenues stretched before him interminably, lined with stereotyped
emblems of affliction, as though all the platitudes ever uttered
had been turned to marble and set up over the unresisting dead.
Here and there, no doubt, a frigid urn or an insipid angel
imprisoned some fine-fibred grief, as the most hackneyed words may
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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 Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: leaden. A poor, mean business, to grow old! Nothing remains
but the COUP D'OEIL, the contemplative man's enjoyment, Mr. -
,' and he paused for the name.
'Naseby,' returned Dick.
The other treated him at once to an exciting beverage, and
expatiated on the pleasure of meeting a compatriot in a
foreign land; to hear him, you would have thought they had
encountered in Central Africa. Dick had never found any one
take a fancy to him so readily, nor show it in an easier or
less offensive manner. He seemed tickled with him as an
elderly fellow about town might be tickled by a pleasant and
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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: in a liberal spirit, is far more useful in promoting
mental activity than book-learning which they
regard (however falsely) as wholly useless except for
purposes of examination. The really useful educa-
tion is that which follows the direction of the child's
own instinctive interests, supplying knowledge for
which it is seeking, not dry, detailed information
wholly out of relation to its spontaneous desires.
[60] Some may fear that the result would be an undue increase
of population, but such fears I believe to be groundless. See
above, (Chapter IV, on ``Work and Pay.'' Also, Chapter vi of
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