| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: doctor gave you a powder, and that the snake leaped out upon the
floor."
"No, no!" muttered Roderick to himself, as he shook his head, and
pressed his hands with a more convulsive force upon his breast,
"I feel him still. It gnaws me! It gnaws me!"
From this time the miserable sufferer ceased to shun the world,
but rather solicited and forced himself upon the notice of
acquaintances and strangers. It was partly the result of
desperation on finding that the cavern of his own bosom had not
proved deep and dark enough to hide the secret, even while it was
so secure a fortress for the loathsome fiend that had crept into
Mosses From An Old Manse |
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: character of the organization of the home and the school as petty
tyrannies, and the absence of all teaching of self-respect and
training in self-assertion. Bullied and ordered about, the Englishman
obeys like a sheep, evades like a knave, or tries to murder his
oppressor. Merely criticized or opposed in committee, or invited to
consider anybody's views but his own, he feels personally insulted and
wants to resign or leave the room unless he is apologized to. And his
panic and bewilderment when he sees that the older hands at the work
have no patience with him and do not intend to treat him as
infallible, are pitiable as far as they are anything but ludicrous.
That is what comes of not being taught to consider other people's
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