| 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: is then that between her and the male who begot them, but cares nothing for
them, there does rise a psychic difference that is real and wide. Alike in
the sports of puppydom and the non-sexual activities of adult age; alike in
the possession of the initial sexual instinct which draws the sex to the
sex, the moment active sexual reproduction is concerned, there is opened to
the female a certain world of sensations and experiences, from which her
male companion is for ever excluded.
So also is our human world: alike in the sports, and joys, and sorrows of
infancy; alike in the non-sexual labours of life; alike even in the
possession of that initial instinct which draws sex to sex, and which,
differing slightly in its forms of manifestation is of corresponding
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole
vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.
A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority;
it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when
it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep
all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the
State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men
were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be
a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them,
and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent
blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: Castanier awoke to find that one idea lay like a weight upon his soul,
an idea which was perhaps the key to loftier spheres. The very fact
that he had bartered away his eternal happiness led him to dwell in
thought upon the future of those who pray and believe. On the morrow
of his debauch, when he entered into the sober possession of his
power, this idea made him feel himself a prisoner; he knew the burden
of the woe that poets, and prophets, and great oracles of faith have
set forth for us in such mighty words; he felt the point of the
Flaming Sword plunged into his side, and hurried in search of Melmoth.
What had become of his predecessor?
The Englishman was living in a mansion in the Rue Ferou, near Saint-
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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 Meno by Plato: SOCRATES: I have certainly often enquired whether there were any, and
taken great pains to find them, and have never succeeded; and many have
assisted me in the search, and they were the persons whom I thought the
most likely to know. Here at the moment when he is wanted we fortunately
have sitting by us Anytus, the very person of whom we should make enquiry;
to him then let us repair. In the first place, he is the son of a wealthy
and wise father, Anthemion, who acquired his wealth, not by accident or
gift, like Ismenias the Theban (who has recently made himself as rich as
Polycrates), but by his own skill and industry, and who is a well-
conditioned, modest man, not insolent, or overbearing, or annoying;
moreover, this son of his has received a good education, as the Athenian
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