| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: And explained all the while in a popular style
Which the Beaver could well understand.
"Taking Three as the subject to reason about--
A convenient number to state--
We add Seven, and Ten, and then multiply out
By One Thousand diminished by Eight.
"The result we proceed to divide, as you see,
By Nine Hundred and Ninety Two:
Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be
Exactly and perfectly true.
"The method employed I would gladly explain,
The Hunting of the Snark |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: the rainbow flashes, the dust rising from the invisible feet, the earth
tearing up from beneath the straining foot-grips, and the wire screen bulge
once or twice as their bodies hurled against it. That was all, and after a
time even that ceased. There were no more flashes, and the shadow had become
long and stationary; and I remembered their set boyish faces when they clung
to the roots in the deep coolness of the pool.
They found me an hour afterward. Some inkling of what had happened got to the
servants and they quitted the Tichlorne service in a body. Gaffer Bedshaw
never recovered from the second shock he received, and is confined in a
madhouse, hopelessly incurable. The secrets of their marvellous discoveries
died with Paul and Lloyd, both laboratories being destroyed by grief-stricken
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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 Menexenus by Plato: Corinthians and Argives and Boeotians, and the other states, were quite
willing to let them go, and swore and covenanted, that, if he would pay
them money, they would make over to him the Hellenes of the continent, and
we alone refused to give them up and swear. Such was the natural nobility
of this city, so sound and healthy was the spirit of freedom among us, and
the instinctive dislike of the barbarian, because we are pure Hellenes,
having no admixture of barbarism in us. For we are not like many others,
descendants of Pelops or Cadmus or Egyptus or Danaus, who are by nature
barbarians, and yet pass for Hellenes, and dwell in the midst of us; but we
are pure Hellenes, uncontaminated by any foreign element, and therefore the
hatred of the foreigner has passed unadulterated into the life-blood of the
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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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: print of a book. From the depths of her large arm-chair, completely
filled by the flow of her dress, the coquette of the past, while
talking to a diplomate who had sought her out to hear the anecdotes
she told so cleverly, was admiring herself in the younger coquette;
she felt kindly to her, seeing how bravely she disguised her annoyance
and grief of heart. Madame de Vaudremont, in fact, felt as much sorrow
as she feigned cheerfulness; she had believed that she had found in
Martial a man of talent on whose support she could count for adorning
her life with all the enchantment of power; and at this moment she
perceived her mistake, as injurious to her reputation as to her good
opinion of herself. In her, as in other women of that time, the
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