| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: have two sons; that is his son, and he is named Thucydides, after his
grandfather; and this is mine, who is also called after his grandfather,
Aristides. Now, we are resolved to take the greatest care of the youths,
and not to let them run about as they like, which is too often the way with
the young, when they are no longer children, but to begin at once and do
the utmost that we can for them. And knowing you to have sons of your own,
we thought that you were most likely to have attended to their training and
improvement, and, if perchance you have not attended to them, we may remind
you that you ought to have done so, and would invite you to assist us in
the fulfilment of a common duty. I will tell you, Nicias and Laches, even
at the risk of being tedious, how we came to think of this. Melesias and I
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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 Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: wordless look at her, her husband followed. She stood motionless
while Raut's light footfall and her husband's heavy tread, like
bass and treble, passed down the passage together. The front door
slammed heavily. She went to the window, moving slowly, and stood
watching--leaning forward. The two men appeared for a moment at
the gateway in the road, passed under the street lamp, and were
hidden by the black masses of the shrubbery. The lamp-light fell
for a moment on their faces, showing only unmeaning pale patches,
telling nothing of what she still feared, and doubted, and craved
vainly to know. Then she sank down into a crouching attitude in
the big arm-chair, her eyes wide open and staring out at the red
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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 Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: There was also a curious interview at a big hotel with a
middle-aged, white-powdered woman, all covered with jewels and
reeking of scent, who wanted a Companion. She did not think Ann
Veronica would do as her companion.
And nearly all these things were fearfully ill-paid. They carried
no more than bare subsistence wages; and they demanded all her
time and energy. She had heard of women journalists, women
writers, and so forth; but she was not even admitted to the
presence of the editors she demanded to see, and by no means sure
that if she had been she could have done any work they might have
given her. One day she desisted from her search and went
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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 Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: you saw him last, that he would be likely so soon to be planning
pleasures like this?"
"No, no indeed! John was terribly crushed when my guardian insisted
on breaking off our engagement. Until my twenty-fourth birthday I
am still bound to do as my guardian says, you know. John's life and
early misfortune made him, as I have already said, morbidly sensitive
and the thought that it would be a bar to anything we might plan in
the future, had rendered him so depressed that - and it was not the
least of my anxieties and my troubles - that I feared ... I feared
anything might happen."
"You feared he might take his own life, do you mean?"
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