| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: footmen and housemaids to royal personages. The sole and obvious
cause of the notion that idleness is delightful and that heaven is a
place where there is nothing to be done, is our school system and our
industrial system. The school is a prison in which work is a
punishment and a curse. In avowed prisons, hard labor, the only
alleviation of a prisoner's lot, is treated as an aggravation of his
punishment; and everything possible is done to intensify the
prisoner's inculcated and unnatural notion that work is an evil. In
industry we are overworked and underfed prisoners. Under such absurd
circumstances our judgment of things becomes as perverted as our
habits. If we were habitually underworked and overfed, our notion of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: partly voyaging and partly making every preparation for an engagement.
He at once left his large sails behind him, as the voyage was only to
be the prelude of a battle; his flying jibs, even if there was a good
breeze, were but little used, since by making his progres depend on
sheer rowing, he hoped at once to improve the physique of his men and
the speed of his attack. Often when the squadron was about to put into
shore for the purpose of breakfast or supper, he would seize the
moment, and draw back the leading wing of the column from the land off
the point in question; and then facing round again with the triremes
posted well in line, prow for prow, at a given signal let loose the
whole fleet in a stoutly contested race for the shore. Great was 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 Lin McLean by Owen Wister: counter, and they returned, bearing it like a streamer to the coffin.
While the noise of their hammers filled the room, the hearse came
tottering to the door, pulled and pushed by twenty men. It was an
ambulance left behind by the soldiers, and of the old-fashioned shape,
concave in body, its top blown away in winds of long ago; and as they
revolved, its wheels dished in and out like hoops about to fall. While
some made a harness from ropes, and throwing the saddles off two ponies
backed them to the vehicle, the body was put in the coffin, now covered
by the chintz. But the laudanum upon the front of her dress revolted
those who remembered their holidays with her, and turning the woman upon
her face, they looked their last upon her flashing, colored ribbons, and
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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 Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: a bow, which spoke of dignity under bitter usage, together with the
inflexible intention of courteous self-control, and turned away.
'Oh, if you please, Captain Drake--let me see what you've done. All
those? But--'
'Isn't it after eleven, Mrs. Innes?' asked the Assistant Secretary,
with a timid smile. He was enjoying himself, but he had a respect
for vested interests, and those of Captain Drake were so well known
that he felt a little like a buccaneer.
'Dear me, so it is!' Mrs. Innes glanced at one of her bracelets.
'Then, Captain Drake, I'm sorry'--she carefully crossed out the
three 'V.D.'s'--'I promised all the dances I had left after ten to
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