| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: people's heads looks of intense but futile intelligence.
CHAPTER VII.
THE young lady in the dining-room had a brave face, black hair,
blue eyes, and in her lap a big volume. "I've come for his
autograph," she said when I had explained to her that I was under
bonds to see people for him when he was occupied. "I've been
waiting half an hour, but I'm prepared to wait all day." I don't
know whether it was this that told me she was American, for the
propensity to wait all day is not in general characteristic of her
race. I was enlightened probably not so much by the spirit of the
utterance as by some quality of its sound. At any rate I saw she
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: Along the basking, silent, many-colored shore gathered and lingered the
crisp odors of the mountains. The dust hung golden and motionless long
after the rider was behind the hill, and the Pacific lay like a floor of
sapphire, whereon to walk beyond the setting sun into the East. One white
sail shone there. Instead of an hour, it had been from dawn till
afternoon in sight between the short headlands; and the Padre had hoped
that it might be the ship his homesick heart awaited. But it had slowly
passed. From an arch in his garden cloisters he was now watching the last
of it. Presently it was gone, and the great ocean lay empty. The Padre
put his glasses in his lap. For a short while he read in his breviary,
but soon forgot it again. He looked at the flowers and sunny ridges, then
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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 Mayflower Compact: Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time,
as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the
Generall Good of the Colonie; unto which we promise
all due Submission and Obedience.
In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names
at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our
Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth,
Anno. Domini, 1620.
Mr. John Carver Mr. Stephen Hopkins
Mr. William Bradford Digery Priest
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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 Phaedo by Plato: relative and absolute; just as the riddles about motion are to be explained
by the double conception of space or matter, which the human mind has the
power of regarding either as continuous or discrete.
In speaking of divine perfection, we mean to say that God is just and true
and loving, the author of order and not of disorder, of good and not of
evil. Or rather, that he is justice, that he is truth, that he is love,
that he is order, that he is the very progress of which we were speaking;
and that wherever these qualities are present, whether in the human soul or
in the order of nature, there is God. We might still see him everywhere,
if we had not been mistakenly seeking for him apart from us, instead of in
us; away from the laws of nature, instead of in them. And we become united
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