| 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: increasingly showing itself in the field of the modern labour; and crude
muscular force, whether in man or beast, sinks continually in its value in
the world of human toil; while intellectual power, virility, and activity,
and that culture which leads to the mastery of the inanimate forces of
nature, to the invention of machinery, and to that delicate manipulative
skill often required in guiding it, becomes ever of greater and greater
importance to the race. Already today we tremble on the verge of a
discovery, which may come tomorrow or the next day, when, through the
attainment of a simple and cheap method of controlling some widely
diffused, everywhere accessible, natural force (such, for instance, as the
force of the great tidal wave) there will at once and for ever pass away
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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 Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: of her love of beauty, the way she always took to it as if it
belonged to her!
Well, the awakening was bound to come, and it was perhaps better
that it should have come so soon. At any rate there was no use
in letting her thoughts wander back to that shattered fool's
paradise of theirs. Only, as she sat there and reckoned up the
days till Strefford arrived, what else in the world was there to
think of?
Her future and his?
But she knew that future by heart already! She had not spent
her life among the rich and fashionable without having learned
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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 Symposium by Xenophon: should love-for-love be given to such a lover? because, forsooth, he
bestows upon himself what he desires, and upon his minion things of
dire reproach? or that what he hastens to exact, infallibly must
separate that other from his nearest friends?
[41] Or, "is wholly taken up with." Cf. Plat. "Laws," 831 C.
If it be pleaded that persuasion is his instrument, not violence; is
that no reason rather for a deeper loathing? since he who uses
violence[42] at any rate declares himself in his true colours as a
villain, while the tempter corrupts the soul of him who yields to his
persuasions.
[42] Cf. "Hiero," iii. 3; "Cyrop." III. i. 39.
The Symposium |
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 Hellenica by Xenophon: recalling him to the assistance of the fatherland without delay. The
announcement could not but come as a grievous blow to Agesilaus, as he
reflected on the vanished hopes, and the honours plucked from his
grasp. Still, he summoned the allies and announced to them the
contents of the despatch from home. "To aid our fatherland," he added,
"is an imperative duty. If, however, matters turn out well on the
other side, rely upon it, friends and allies, I will not forget you,
but I shall be back anon to carry out your wishes." When they heard
the announcement many wept, and they passed a resolution, one and all,
to assist Agesilaus in assisting Lacedaemon; if matters turned out
well there, they undertook to take him as their leader and come back
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