| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: patch of fur on the ground till the old woman put it carefully in the
middle of the fire. The girl reached back inside the van and tossed
her a paper parcel. This was laid on the fire too, and they smelt
singed feathers.
'Chicken feathers!' said Dan. 'I wonder if they are old Hobden's.'
Una sneezed. The dog growled and crawled to the girl's feet,
the old woman fanned the fire with her hat, while the man led the
horses up to the shafts, They all moved as quickly and quietly as
snakes over moss.
'Ah!' said the girl. 'I'll teach you!' She beat the dog, who
seemed to expect it.
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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 Turn of the Screw by Henry James: hideous just because it WAS human, as human as to have
met alone, in the small hours, in a sleeping house, some enemy,
some adventurer, some criminal. It was the dead silence of our
long gaze at such close quarters that gave the whole horror,
huge as it was, its only note of the unnatural. If I had met
a murderer in such a place and at such an hour, we still at
least would have spoken. Something would have passed, in life,
between us; if nothing had passed, one of us would have moved.
The moment was so prolonged that it would have taken but little
more to make me doubt if even _I_ were in life. I can't
express what followed it save by saying that the silence itself--
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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 Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: unlikely to give offence. And there--with certain omissions which
he subsequently supplied--I got his story. At first I was incredulous,
but as the wine warmed him, and the faint suggestion of cringing
which his misfortunes had added to his manner disappeared, I began
to believe. At last, I was so far convinced of his sincerity that
I got him a bed for the night, and next day verified the banker's
reference he gave me through my Jamaica banker. And that done, I took
him shopping for underwear and such like equipments of a gentleman
at large. Presently came the verified reference. His astonishing
story was true. I will not amplify our subsequent proceedings.
He started for England in three days' time.
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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 I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: D.C. on August 28, 1963
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow
we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous
decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro
slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.
It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that
the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of
the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation
and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the
Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast
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