| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: condition of your future son-in-law. You demanded that he should
prove to you that his stocks and bonds were actual value, listed
on the exchange. Also, you obtained some information about his
character. In fact, you forgot only one point, the most
important of all--that was, to inquire if he was in good health.
You never did that."
The father-in-law's voice had become faint. "No," he said.
"But why not?"
"Because that is not the custom."
"Very well, but that ought to be the custom. Surely the father
of a family, before he gives his daughter to a man, should take
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: Spaniards. Saves the Spanish taxpayer. Jolly good thing for us if
the Germans took Portsmouth. Sit down, wont you?
_The group breaks up. Johnny and Bentley hurry to the pavilion and
fetch the two wicker chairs. Johnny gives his to Lina. Hypatia and
Percival take the chairs at the worktable. Lord Summerhays gives the
chair at the vestibule end of the writing table to Mrs Tarleton; and
Bentley replaces it with a wicker chair, which Lord Summerhays takes.
Johnny remains standing behind the worktable, Bentley behind his
father._
MRS TARLETON. _[to Lina]_ Have some tea now, wont you?
LINA. I never drink tea.
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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 Walden by Henry David Thoreau: they were starved out, or rather were never baited in -- only
squirrels on the roof and under the floor, a whip-poor-will on the
ridge-pole, a blue jay screaming beneath the window, a hare or
woodchuck under the house, a screech owl or a cat owl behind it, a
flock of wild geese or a laughing loon on the pond, and a fox to
bark in the night. Not even a lark or an oriole, those mild
plantation birds, ever visited my clearing. No cockerels to crow
nor hens to cackle in the yard. No yard! but unfenced nature
reaching up to your very sills. A young forest growing up under
your meadows, and wild sumachs and blackberry vines breaking through
into your cellar; sturdy pitch pines rubbing and creaking against
Walden |
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 Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: happier, wealthier, wiser, and better than it is now.
But Synthesis would not. He grew up a very noble boy. He could
carve, he could paint, he could build, he could make music, and
write poems: but he was full of conceit and haste. Whenever his
elder brother tried to do a little patient work in taking things
to pieces, Synthesis snatched the work out of his hands before it
was a quarter done, and began putting it together again to suit
his own fancy, and, of course, put it together wrong. Then he
went on to bully his elder brother, and locked him up in prison,
and starved him, till for many hundred years poor Analysis never
grew at all, but remained dwarfed, and stupid, and all but blind
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