| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: half frozen one winter's day. At 11 years she had pneumonia.
She menstruated at 14 years.
The heredity and family history in this case is of great
interest. Libby's mother went to work for her first husband's
family in the old country. At about that time this man's first
wife died, but he had previously left her. He came of a good
family, he was himself, however, a hard-drinking man. He left
two children by his first wife with his parents and came to this
country with Libby's mother. Here they lived in a common-law
marriage relationship for many years, and two children (one of
them Libby) were born to them. The man continued to be a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: burden of the army, although the one is intended to hasten
the end of hunger and cold and the other for the defence of
the revolution. The Communists, as the party in power,
naturally bear the blame and are the objects of the
discontent, which will certainly within a short time be
turned upon any other government that may succeed them.
That government must introduce sterner discipline rather
than weaker, and the transport and other difficulties of the
country will remain the same, unless increased by the
disorder of a new upheaval and the active or passive
resistance of many who are convinced revolutionaries
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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 The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: they are afraid of it. It represents to them a mode of
Individualism, an assertion on the part of the artist that he
selects his own subject, and treats it as he chooses. The public
are quite right in their attitude. Art is Individualism, and
Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein
lies its immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony
of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of
man to the level of a machine. In Art, the public accept what has
been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it.
They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. They
endure them as the inevitable, and as they cannot mar them, they
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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 Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: The foreman's services were spared.
Thin would not count among his minions
A man of Wesleyan opinions.
'Money is money,' so he said.
'Crescents are crescents, trade is trade.
Pharaohs and emperors in their seasons
Built, I believe, for different reasons -
Charity, glory, piety, pride -
To pay the men, to please a bride,
To use their stone, to spite their neighbours,
Not for a profit on their labours.
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