| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: and the food and the perfume disliked in the summer are
perfectly welcome then.
I am very busy preparing for Christmas, but have
often locked myself up in a room alone, shutting out my
unfinished duties, to study the flower catalogues and make
my lists of seeds and shrubs and trees for the spring.
It is a fascinating occupation, and acquires an additional
charm when you know you ought to be doing something else,
that Christmas is at the door, that children <128> and servants
and farm hands depend on you for their pleasure, and that,
if you don't see to the decoration of the trees and house,
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: We must get out of this sharp."
But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps!
For we might have run, and if we had run we should, I believe,
have burst into flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into
flames! You know we had neither of us thought of that. . . . But
before we could even begin to run the action of the drug had ceased.
It was the business of a minute fraction of a second. The effect of
the New Accelerator passed like the drawing of a curtain, vanished in
the movement of a hand. I heard Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm.
"Sit down," he said, and flop, down upon the turf at the edge of the
Leas I sat--scorching as I sat. There is a patch of burnt grass
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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 Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: In the back part was Hilary's grave, while in the front was a
niche for sleeping, with a straw mattress, a small table, and a
shelf with icons and books. Outside the outer door, which
fastened with a hook, was another shelf on which, once a day, a
monk placed food from the monastery.
And so Sergius became a hermit.
III
At Carnival time, in the sixth year of Sergius's life at the
hermitage, a merry company of rich people, men and women from a
neighbouring town, made up a troyka-party, after a meal of
carnival-pancakes and wine. The company consisted of two
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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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: his cigarette savagely on the green ash-tray. "I could stand any amount of
it, used to like it even. It's the idea of--" Suddenly, to his horror, he
felt himself blushing.
"Roo-coo-coo-coo! Roo-coo-coo-coo!"
Anne jumped up. "Come and say good-bye to my doves," she said. "They've
been moved to the side veranda. You do like doves, don't you, Reggie?"
"Awfully," said Reggie, so fervently that as he opened the French window
for her and stood to one side, Anne ran forward and laughed at the doves
instead.
To and fro, to and fro over the fine red sand on the floor of the dove
house, walked the two doves. One was always in front of the other. One
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