| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: comfort of it when her children were born. She wondered if Martin
realized her touch, if it helped a little. If it had annoyed him,
he would have said so. It came to her oddly that in all the
twenty-seven years she and her husband had been married this was
the very first time he had let her be tender to him. Oh, his life
had been bleak. Bleak! And she with such tenderness in her heart.
It hadn't been right. From the depths of her rebellion and
forgiveness, slow tears rose. Feeling too intensely, too
mentally, to be conscious of them she sat unmoving as they rolled
one by one down her cheeks and dropped unheeded.
"Rose," he called with a soft hoarseness, "I want to talk to
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: by his fame and repute in the world than by actual force and
power. Of all the others that joined in Nero's deposition, some
were by general consent regarded as unworthy, others had only
themselves to vote them deserving of the empire. To him the
title was offered, and by him it was accepted; and simply
lending his name to Vindex's attempt, he gave to what had been
called rebellion before, the name of a civil war, by the
presence of one that was accounted fit to govern. And,
therefore, as he considered that he had not so much sought the
position as the position had sought him, he proposed to command
those whom Nymphidius and Tigellinus had wheedled into
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: not to be mentioned, and take it for granted that no decent person
would attempt to discuss sex. The three subjects are feared because
they rouse the crude passions which call for furious gratification in
murder and rapine at worst, and, at best, lead to quarrels and
undesirable states of consciousness.
Even when this excuse of bad manners, ill temper, and brutishness (for
that is what it comes to) compels us to accept it from those adults
among whom political and theological discussion does as a matter of
fact lead to the drawing of knives and pistols, and sex discussion
leads to obscenity, it has no application to children except as an
imperative reason for training them to respect other people's
|
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 Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: profligate with women, and had no religion.
" 'Then,' said I, 'I think the less you have to do with him the
better.'
"But it is not easy to have the last word with a man like Namu. He
was ready in a moment with an illustration. 'Misi,' said he, 'you
have told me there were wise men, not pastors, not even holy, who
knew many things useful to be taught - about trees for instance,
and beasts, and to print books, and about the stones that are
burned to make knives of. Such men teach you in your college, and
you learn from them, but take care not to learn to be unholy.
Misi, Case is my college.'
|
