| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: to be filled up perhaps hereafter when the world needs them; the
handiwork, in short, of a living and loving Mind, perfect in His
own eternity, but stooping to work in time and space, and there
rejoicing Himself in the work of His own hands, and in His eternal
Sabbaths ceasing in rest ineffable, that He may look on that which
He hath made, and behold it is very good.
I speak, of course, under correction; for this conclusion is
emphatically matter of induction, and must be verified or modified
by ever-fresh facts: but I meet with many a Christian passage in
scientific books, which seems to me to go, not too far, but rather
not far enough, in asserting the God of the Bible, as Saint Paul
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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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: do anything else, you know." She got up and took some yellow grains out of
a bag on the roof of the dove house. "When you think of them, out in
Rhodesia, Reggie, you can be sure that is what they will be doing..."
Reggie gave no sign of having seen the doves or of having heard a word.
For the moment he was conscious only of the immense effort it took to tear
his secret out of himself and offer it to Anne. "Anne, do you think you
could ever care for me?" It was done. It was over. And in the little
pause that followed Reginald saw the garden open to the light, the blue
quivering sky, the flutter of leaves on the veranda poles, and Anne turning
over the grains of maize on her palm with one finger. Then slowly she shut
her hand, and the new world faded as she murmured slowly, "No, never in
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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 Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: and she ran home, laughing.
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. "You are blind now," he
said, "so I will stay with you always."
"No, little Swallow," said the poor Prince, "you must go away to
Egypt."
"I will stay with you always," said the Swallow, and he slept at
the Prince's feet.
All the next day he sat on the Prince's shoulder, and told him
stories of what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the
red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and
catch gold-fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: too, may recollect the sketch of the primeval Hun, as he first
appeared to the astonished and disgusted old Roman soldier Ammianus
Marcellinus; the visages "more like cakes than faces;" the "figures
like those which are hewn out with an axe on the poles at bridge-
ends;" the rat-skin coats, which they wore till they rotted off
their limbs; their steaks of meat cooked between the saddle and the
thigh; the little horses on which "they eat and drink, buy and sell,
and sleep lying forward along his narrow neck, and indulging in
every variety of dream." And over and above, and more important
politically, the common councils "held on horseback, under the
authority of no king, but content with the irregular government of
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