| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: a boy's brain. All the deliciousness and fineness of a finely bred
woman was hers; but, for all he could discern, her mental processes
were sexless and boyish. And yet speech it must be, for a
beginning had to be made somewhere, some time; her mind must be
made accustomed to the idea, her thoughts turned upon the matter of
marriage.
And so he rode overseeing about the plantation, with tightly drawn
and puckered brows, puzzling over the problem, and steeling himself
to the first attempt. A dozen ways he planned an intricate leading
up to the first breaking of the ice, and each time some link in the
chain snapped and the talk went off on unexpected and irrelevant
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: adaptions, be found most fitted for the bulk of human labours in the
future!
As with individuals and races, so also with sexes, changed social
conditions may render exactly those subtile qualities, which in one social
state were a disadvantage, of the highest social advantage in another.
The skilled diplomatist or politician, so powerful in his own element, on
board ship during a storm becomes at once of less general value or
consideration than the meanest sailor who can reef a sail or guide a wheel;
and, were we to be reduced again suddenly to a state of nature, a company
of highly civilised men and women would at once, as we have before
remarked, find their social value completely inverted; landed on a desert
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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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: What may a heavy groan advantage thee?
Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping
Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see? 952
Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour
Since her best work is ruin'd with thy rigour.'
Here overcome, as one full of despair,
She vail'd her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopp'd 956
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp'd
But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,
And with his strong course opens them again. 960
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: cannot write how I feel, just as I cannot say it. But, Dick dear,
I have such a terrible fear of losing you, and you are my life now.
You will be careful and not run any risks, won't you? And just
remember this always. Wherever you are and wherever I am, I am
thinking of you and waiting for you."
He read it three times, until he knew it by heart, and he slept
with it in the pocket of his pajama coat.
Three days later he reached Norada, and registered at the Commercial
Hotel. The town itself conveyed nothing to him. He found it
totally unfamiliar, and for its part the town passed him by without
a glance. A new field had come in, twenty miles from the old one,
The Breaking Point |
