| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: face, or hear the things he said when his name went up for the
military walk.
(Oh yes, we had a blackboard in the hall, and every morning each
guest looked to see if it was wood-pile day or
military-walk day. At first, instead of wood-pile, it was walk-
clearing day, but they soon had the snow off all the paths.)
As I say, I was glad. It looked as if the new idea was a
success, although as Doctor Barnes said, nobody could really tell
until new people began to come. That was the real test. They
had turned the baths into a gymnasium and they had beginners'
classes and advanced classes, and a prize offered on 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 The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: had, between itself and the street, an iron railing, in the centre of
which was a little gate opening in the middle.
This building, of rouge stone covered with stucco, and two storeys in
height, had received a coat of yellow-wash; the blinds were painted
green, and so were the shutters on the lower storey. The kitchen
occupied the ground-floor of the pavilion on the courtyard, and the
cook, a stout, strong girl, protected by two enormous dogs, performed
the functions of portress. The facade, composed of five windows, and
the two pavilions, which projected nine feet, were in the style
Phellion. Above the door the master of the house had inserted a tablet
of white marble, on which, in letters of gold, were read the words,
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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 Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: way. He has wandered over the whole earth in search of some
treasure great enough to buy Freia back from the giants; but in
all the world he has found nothing for which Man will give up
Woman. And this, by the way, reminds him of the matter he had
promised to lay before Wotan. The Rhine maidens have complained
to him of Alberic's theft of their gold; and he mentions it as a
curious exception to his universal law of the unpurchasable
preciousness of love, that this gold-robber has forsworn love for
the sake of the fabulous riches of the Plutonic empire and the
mastery of the world through its power.
No sooner is the tale told than the giants stoop lower than the
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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 The Republic by Plato: e.g. 8 and 27 = 2 cubed and 3 cubed; and conversely. 'Waxing' (Greek)
numbers, called also 'increasing' (Greek), are those which are exceeded by
the sum of their divisors: e.g. 12 and 18 are less than 16 and 21.
'Waning' (Greek) numbers, called also 'decreasing' (Greek) are those which
succeed the sum of their divisors: e.g. 8 and 27 exceed 7 and 13. The
words translated 'commensurable and agreeable to one another' (Greek) seem
to be different ways of describing the same relation, with more or less
precision. They are equivalent to 'expressible in terms having the same
relation to one another,' like the series 8, 12, 18, 27, each of which
numbers is in the relation of (1 and 1/2) to the preceding. The 'base,' or
'fundamental number, which has 1/3 added to it' (1 and 1/3) = 4/3 or a
The Republic |
