| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: liberally supplied with the material goods of life, that mere physical toil
on the part of its own female members has become unnecessary. It is when
this point has been reached, and never before, that the symptoms of female
parasitism have in the past almost invariably tended to manifest
themselves, and have become a social danger. The males of the dominant
class have almost always contrived to absorb to themselves the new
intellectual occupations, with the absence of necessity for the old forms
of physical toil made possible in their societies; and the females of the
dominant class or race, for whose muscular labours there was now also no
longer any need, not succeeding in grasping or attaining to these new forms
of labour, have sunk into a state in which, performing no species of active
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: relationship, and of the political sympathies within frontiers,
are to her what she calls heartless brutes. That is exactly what
I have been called by readers of your novel; and that, indeed, is
exactly what I am, judged by the fictitious and feminine standard
of morality. Hence some critics have been able plausibly to
pretend to take the book as a satire on Socialism. It may, for
what I know, have been so intended by you. Whether or no, I am
sorry you made a novel of my story, for the effect has been
almost as if you had misrepresented me from beginning to end.
At the same time, I acknowledge that you have stated the facts,
on the whole, with scrupulous fairness. You have, indeed,
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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 Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey: "Let me untie them, I say," growled Snap.
Mescal tore loose from him and stepped back. Her hands were bound before
her, and twisting them outward, she warded him off. Her dishevelled hair
almost hid her dark eyes. They burned in a level glance of hate and
defiance. She was a little lioness, quivering with fiery life, fight in
every line of her form.
"All right, don't eat then--starve!" said Snap.
"I'll starve before I eat what you give me."
The rustlers laughed. Holderness blew out a puff of smoke and smiled.
Snap glowered upon Mescal and then upon his amiable companions. One of
them, a ruddyfaced fellow, walked toward Mescal.
The Heritage of the Desert |
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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: She looked at him with her odd directness. "You will come
again?" she said quickly; and turning to her father she added:
"You know what Professor Clyde asked. This gentleman cannot give
him any account of the picture without seeing it again."
Doctor Lombard glanced at her vaguely; he was still like a person
in a trance.
"Eh?" he said, rousing himself with an effort.
"I said, father, that Mr. Wyant must see the picture again if he
is to tell Professor Clyde about it," Miss Lombard repeated with
extraordinary precision of tone.
Wyant was silent. He had the puzzled sense that his wishes were
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