| 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: with life.
It is often said that the labour problem before the modern woman and that
before the unemployed or partially or almost uselessly employed male, are
absolutely identical; and that therefore, when the male labour problem of
our age solves itself, that of the woman will of necessity have met its
solution also.
This statement, with a certain specious semblance of truth, is yet, we
believe, radically and fundamentally false. It is true that both the male
and the female problems of our age have taken their rise largely in the
same rapid material changes which during the last centuries, and more
especially the last ninety years, have altered the face of the human world.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: Good Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas; they send love-
letters on Valentine's Day, burn the pope on the fifth of
November, and kiss all the girls under the mistletoe at
Christmas. Roast beef and plum pudding are also held in
superstitious veneration, and port and sherry maintain their
grounds as the only true English wines; all others being
considered vile, outlandish beverages.
Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders, which its
inhabitants consider the wonders of the world: such as the
great bell of St. Paul's, which sours all the beer when it tolls;
the figures that strike the hours at St. Dunstan's clock; the
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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 Ion by Plato: from another. Thus there is a vast chain of dancers and masters and under-
masters of choruses, who are suspended, as if from the stone, at the side
of the rings which hang down from the Muse. And every poet has some Muse
from whom he is suspended, and by whom he is said to be possessed, which is
nearly the same thing; for he is taken hold of. And from these first
rings, which are the poets, depend others, some deriving their inspiration
from Orpheus, others from Musaeus; but the greater number are possessed and
held by Homer. Of whom, Ion, you are one, and are possessed by Homer; and
when any one repeats the words of another poet you go to sleep, and know
not what to say; but when any one recites a strain of Homer you wake up in
a moment, and your soul leaps within you, and you have plenty to say; for
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: and brief. When I consider the petty passions of our
contemporaries, the mildness of their manners, the extent of
their education, the purity of their religion, the gentleness of
their morality, their regular and industrious habits, and the
restraint which they almost all observe in their vices no less
than in their virtues, I have no fear that they will meet with
tyrants in their rulers, but rather guardians. *a I think then
that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are
menaced is unlike anything which ever before existed in the
world: our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their
memories. I am trying myself to choose an expression which will
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