| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: IOKANAAN. Fille d'adultere, il n'y a qu'un homme qui puisse te
sauver. C'est celui dont je t'ai parle. Allez le chercher. Il est
dans un bateau sur la mer de Galilee, et il parle e ses disciples.
Agenouillez-vous au bord de la mer, et appelez-le par son nom.
Quand il viendra vers vous, et il vient vers tous ceux qui
l'appellent, prosternez-vous e ses pieds et demandez-lui la
remission de vos peches.
SALOME. Laisse-moi baiser ta bouche.
IOKANAAN. Soyez maudite, fille d'une mere incestueuse, soyez
maudite.
SALOME. Je baiserai ta bouche, Iokanaan.
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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 House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: 'No, do not stare so--he is weak with grief,
He cannot face you, he turns his eyes aside;
He is confused with pain.
I suffered this. I know. It was long ago . . .
He closes his eyes and drowns in death again.'
The wind hurls blows at the rain-starred glistening windows,
The wind shrills down from the half-seen walls.
We flow on the mournful wind in a dream of dying;
And at last a silence falls.
VII.
Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers
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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 Jungle by Upton Sinclair: home every penny; he could not even go with the men at noontime--he was
supposed to sit down and eat his dinner on a pile of fertilizer dust.
This was not always his mood, of course; he still loved his family.
But just now was a time of trial. Poor little Antanas, for instance--
who had never failed to win him with a smile--little Antanas was
not smiling just now, being a mass of fiery red pimples. He had
had all the diseases that babies are heir to, in quick succession,
scarlet fever, mumps, and whooping cough in the first year, and now
he was down with the measles. There was no one to attend him but
Kotrina; there was no doctor to help him, because they were too poor,
and children did not die of the measles--at least not often. Now and
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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 Sophist by Plato: with soul remains absolutely unmoved?
THEAETETUS: All three suppositions appear to me to be irrational.
STRANGER: Under being, then, we must include motion, and that which is
moved.
THEAETETUS: Certainly.
STRANGER: Then, Theaetetus, our inference is, that if there is no motion,
neither is there any mind anywhere, or about anything or belonging to any
one.
THEAETETUS: Quite true.
STRANGER: And yet this equally follows, if we grant that all things are in
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