| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: arrangements, their little games and secrets and vices--those
things all pass before me."
This was a picture that could make a clergyman's widow not
imperceptibly gasp; it was in intention moreover something of a
retort to the thousand tulips. "Their vices? Have they got
vices?"
Our young critic even more overtly stared then with a touch of
contempt in her amusement: "Haven't you found THAT out?" The
homes of luxury then hadn't so much to give. "I find out
everything."
Mrs. Jordan, at bottom a very meek person, was visibly struck. "I
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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 Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare: Flaming in the phoenix' sight:
Either was the other's mine.
Property was thus appall'd,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was call'd.
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either-neither,
Simple were so well compounded.
That it cried how true a twain
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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 House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: If we were wise--which God knows we are not--
(Notice I call on God!) we'd plumb this riddle
Not in the world we see, but in ourselves.
These brains of ours--these delicate spinal clusters--
Have limits: why not learn them, learn their cravings?
Which of the two minds, yours or mine, is sound?
Yours, which scorned the world that gave it freedom,
Until you managed to see that world as omen,--
Or mine, which likes the world, takes all for granted,
Sorrow as much as joy, and death as life?--
You lean on dreams, and take more credit for it.
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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 A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: nor revenge nor punish. Now family life and school life are, as far
as the moral training of children is concerned, nothing but the
deliberate inculcation of a routine of complaint, scolding,
punishment, persecution, and revenge as the natural and only possible
way of dealing with evil or inconvenience. "Aint nobody to be whopped
for this here?" exclaimed Sam Weller when he saw his employer's name
written up on a stage coach, and conceived the phenomenon as an insult
which reflected on himself. This exclamation of Sam Weller is at once
the negation of Christianity and the beginning and the end of current
morality; and so it will remain as long as the family and the school
persist as we know them: that is, as long as the rights of children
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