| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: the usual plunge went steadily. The monotonous order of plunging
and rising, roaring and relaxing, was interfered with, and every
one at table looked up and felt something loosen within them.
The strain was slackened and human feelings began to peep again,
as they do when daylight shows at the end of a tunnel.
"Try a turn with me," Ridley called across to Rachel."
"Foolish!" cried Helen, but they went stumbling up the ladder.
Choked by the wind their spirits rose with a rush, for on the skirts
of all the grey tumult was a misty spot of gold. Instantly the world
dropped into shape; they were no longer atoms flying in the void,
but people riding a triumphant ship on the back of the sea.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge treats its
cattle.
A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but
beautiful--while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse
than useless, besides being ugly. Which is the best man to deal
with--he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is
extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really
knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?
My desire for knowledge is intermittent, but my desire to bathe
my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and
constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but
Walking |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: from Dunbarton was like balm among the harsh stings Molly was
receiving. The voices of the world reached her in gathering
numbers, and not one of them save that great-aunt's was sweet.
Her days were full of hurts; and there was no one by to kiss the
hurts away. Nor did she even hear from her lover any more now.
She only knew he had gone into lonely regions upon his errand.
That errand took him far:- Across the Basin, among the secret
places of Owl Creek, past the Washakie Needles, over the Divide
to Gros Ventre, and so through a final barrier of peaks into the
borders of East Idaho. There, by reason of his bidding me, I met
him, and came to share in a part of his errand.
The Virginian |
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 Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: display an astounding disregard of this second disorganizing factor.
They treat the world of men as if it were purely a hunger world
instead of a hunger-sex world. Yet there is no phase of human
society, no question of politics, economics, or industry that is not
tied up in almost equal measure with the expression of both of these
primordial impulses. You cannot sweep back overpowering dynamic
instincts by catchwords. You can neglect and thwart sex only at your
peril. You cannot solve the problem of hunger and ignore the problem
of sex. They are bound up together.
While the gravest attention is paid to the problem of hunger and food,
that of sex is neglected. Politicians and scientists are ready and
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