| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: He also held athletic contests, built amusement parks, and ransacked
the world for jugglers and magicians and singers and players and
storytellers (that's how I met him) and musicians. He ate too much,
drank too much, and danced and played and watched and traveled and
did too much and basically engaged in a constant frenzy of activity
from morning to night, from January to December, from the beginning
of the decade to its end. And the result was that he was amused for
awhile, but was mostly fat and tired and sometimes drunk and often
disoriented, but still not happy.
"Perhaps your majesty would be happy if he ruled the surrounding
lands and felt secure from attack," suggested the head of his army.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: series out of the first and second volumes of 'Modern Painters'; and
shall omit much of the 'Seven Lamps' and 'Stones of Venice'; but all
my books written within the last fifteen years will be republished
without change, as new editions of them are called for, with here
and there perhaps an additional note, and having their text divided,
for convenient reference, into paragraphs, consecutive through each
volume. I shall also throw together the shorter fragments that bear
on each other, and fill in with such unprinted lectures or studies
as seem to me worth preserving, so as to keep the volumes, on an
average, composed of about a hundred leaves each.
The first book of which a new edition is required chances to be
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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 Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: as much as I loved Bertie and Billy. So there is no black eye about it.
Pity Oscar, if you like; but don't be so mushy as to admire him as he
stepped along in the night, holding his notes, full of his knowledge,
thinking of Bertie and Billy, conscious of virtue, and smiling his
smile. They were not conscious of any virtue, were Bertie and Billy,
nor were they smiling. They were solemnly eating up together a box of
handsome strawberries and sucking the juice from their reddened thumbs.
"Rather mean not to make him wait and have some of these after his hard
work on us," said Bertie. "I'd forgotten about them--"
"He ran out before you could remember, anyway," said Billy.
"Wasn't he absurd about his old notes? "Bertie went on, a new
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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 Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: "That is none of my business," said the physician; "but if your
bearers will carry you round the corner to the surgeon's, I feel
sure he will afford relief."
Some three years later, the young man came running to the
physician's house in a great perturbation. "What is the meaning of
this?" he cried. "Here was I to be set free from the bondage of
sin; and I have just committed forgery, arson and murder."
"Dear me," said the physician. "This is very serious. Off with
your clothes at once." And as soon as the young man had stripped,
he examined him from head to foot. "No," he cried with great
relief, "there is not a flake broken. Cheer up, my young friend,
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