| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: down from his chariot; so he fell in the dust and clutched the
earth in the hollow of his hand. These he let lie, and went on to
wound Charops son of Hippasus own brother to noble Socus. Socus,
hero that he was, made all speed to help him, and when he was
close to Ulysses he said, "Far-famed Ulysses, insatiable of craft
and toil, this day you shall either boast of having killed both
the sons of Hippasus and stripped them of their armour, or you
shall fall before my spear."
With these words he struck the shield of Ulysses. The spear went
through the shield and passed on through his richly wrought
cuirass, tearing the flesh from his side, but Pallas Minerva did
The Iliad |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: convicted;
by John Partridge, student in physick and astrology.
It is hard, my dear countrymen of these united nations, it is
very hard that a Briton born, a Protestant astrologer, a man of
revolution principles, an assertor of the liberty and property of
the people, should cry out, in vain, for justice against a
Frenchman, a Papist, an illiterate pretender to science; that
would blast my reputation, most inhumanly bury me alive, and
defraud my native country of those services, that, in my double
capacity, I daily offer to the publick.
What great provocations I have receiv'd, let the impartial reader
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: two, had jocosely insisted; "the least hint of 'convenience'
would make me think it had been bought out of an exhibition, with
the pieces numbered, and set up again." And they had proceeded
to enumerate, with humorous precision, their various suspicions
and exactions, refusing to believe that the house their cousin
recommended was REALLY Tudor till they learned it had no heating
system, or that the village church was literally in the grounds
till she assured them of the deplorable uncertainty of the water-
supply.
"It's too uncomfortable to be true!" Edward Boyne had continued
to exult as the avowal of each disadvantage was successively
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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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: hundreds, or it may be for thousands, of years, with little or no change in
the material conditions of life, the desires, institutions, and moral
principles of men, their religious, political, domestic, and sexual
institutions, have gradually shaped themselves in accordance with these
conditions; and a certain harmony, and homogeneity, and tranquillity,
pervades the society.
In societies in that rapid state of change in which our modern societies
find themselves, where not merely each decade, but each year, and almost
day brings new forces and conditions to bear on life, not only is the
amount of suffering and social rupture, which all rapid, excessive, and
sudden change entails on an organism, inevitable; but, the new conditions,
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