| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: I do. I haven't pushed you. I've stood back and let you have your
good times. Don't you think it's about time for us to talk
business?"
"Just as soon as you like, Ned."
"Well, then, let's announce it."
"That we're not engaged to be married and never will be! Is that
what you want to announce?"
He flushed angrily. "What's the use of talking that way? You know
it has been arranged for years."
"I'm not going through with it. I told Father so. The thing is
outrageous," she flamed.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: Master of Balliol College
Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford
Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a
pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans,
and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land
and property in Scillus, where he lived for many
years before having to move once more, to settle
in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.
The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia
to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and
take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
Anabasis |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: centuries, the wild things of the jungle and of the plains
beyond had come down to drink, the carnivora with bold
and fearless majesty, the herbivora timorous, hesitating,
fearful.
Numa, the lion, was hungry, he was very hungry, and so he
was quite silent now. On his way to the drinking place
he had moaned often and roared not a little; but as he
neared the spot where he would lie in wait for Bara,
the deer, or Horta, the boar, or some other of the many
luscious-fleshed creatures who came hither to drink,
he was silent. It was a grim, a terrible silence,
The Jungle Tales of Tarzan |
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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: The honest and skilled workman feels their effects. Compelled too
often to live where he can, in order to be near his work, he finds
himself perpetually in contact with a class utterly inferior to
himself, and his children exposed to contaminating influences from
which he would gladly remove them; but how can he? Next door to
him, even in the same house with him, may be enacted scenes of
brutality or villainy which I will not speak of here. He may shut
his own eyes and ears to them; but he cannot shut his children's.
He may vex his righteous soul daily, like Lot of old, with the
foul conversation of the wicked; but, like Lot of old, he cannot
keep his children from mixing with the inhabitants of the wicked
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