| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: asunder by the vehemence of the wind. The gray mass was rent and
scattered east and west with ominous speed, a dim uncertain light from
the rift in the sky fell full upon the boat, and the travelers beheld
each other's faces. All of them, the noble and the wealthy, the
sailors and the poor passengers alike, were amazed for a moment by the
appearance of the last comer. His golden hair, parted upon his calm,
serene forehead, fell in thick curls about his shoulders; and his
face, sublime in its sweetness and radiant with divine love, stood out
against the surrounding gloom. He had no contempt for death; he knew
that he should not die. But if at the first the company in the stern
forgot for a moment the implacable fury of the storm that threatened
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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 Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: brought somewhat near to that great fact -- that mystery of
mysteries -- the first appearance of new beings on this earth.
Of terrestrial mammals, there is only one which must be
considered as indigenous, namely, a mouse (Mus Galapagoensis),
and this is confined, as far as I could ascertain, to
Chatham Island, the most easterly island of the group. It
belongs, as I am informed by Mr. Waterhouse, to a division
of the family of mice characteristic of America. At James
Island, there is a rat sufficiently distinct from the common
kind to have been named and described by Mr. Waterhouse;
but as it belongs to the old-world division of the family, and
The Voyage of the Beagle |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: wish to say that I have never liked any man better than you. But
I expect to!"
He must have drawn small comfort from such an answer as that. But
he laughed out indomitably:"Don't yu' go betting on any such
expectation!" And then their words ceased to be distinct, and it
was only their two voices that I heard wandering among the
windings of the stream.
XXII. "WHAT IS A RUSTLER?"
We all know what birds of a feather do. And it may be safely
surmised that if a bird of any particular feather has been for a
long while unable to see other birds of its kind, it will flock
The Virginian |
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 A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: culture is a sham; that it knows little about literature or art and a
great deal about point-to-point races; and that the village cobbler,
who has never read a page of Plato, and is admittedly a dangerously
ignorant man politically, is nevertheless a Socrates compared to the
classically educated gentlemen who discuss politics in country houses
at election time (and at no other time) after their day's earnest and
skilful shooting. Think of the years and years of weary torment the
women of the piano-possessing class have been forced to spend over the
keyboard, fingering scales. How many of them could be bribed to
attend a pianoforte recital by a great player, though they will rise
from sick beds rather than miss Ascot or Goodwood?
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