| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: On a little deuced cars,
A load for father's cattle.
Yankee doodle do, etc.
And every time they fired it off
It took a horn of powder,
It made a noise--like father's gun,
Only a nation louder.
Yankee doodle do, etc.
There was a man in our town,
His name was--
No, no, that won't do. Now, if I was with Tabitha
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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 Crowd by Gustave le Bon: the object considerably increases its force.
The simplicity and exaggeration of the sentiments of crowds have
for result that a throng knows neither doubt nor uncertainty.
Like women, it goes at once to extremes. A suspicion transforms
itself as soon as announced into incontrovertible evidence. A
commencement of antipathy or disapprobation, which in the case of
an isolated individual would not gain strength, becomes at once
furious hatred in the case of an individual in a crowd.
The violence of the feelings of crowds is also increased,
especially in heterogeneous crowds, by the absence of all sense
of responsibility. The certainty of impunity, a certainty the
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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 Georgics by Virgil: Glaucus, and Melicertes, Ino's child.
The sun too, both at rising, and when soon
He dives beneath the waves, shall yield thee signs;
For signs, none trustier, travel with the sun,
Both those which in their course with dawn he brings,
And those at star-rise. When his springing orb
With spots he pranketh, muffled in a cloud,
And shrinks mid-circle, then of showers beware;
For then the South comes driving from the deep,
To trees and crops and cattle bringing bane.
Or when at day-break through dark clouds his rays
Georgics |
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 Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: up them meadows. They've been a-sayin' that since '74; and I've been
a-sayin' it myself, when judicious." Here he shook slightly and opened
the basket. "Twelve," he said. "Sixteen yesterday. Now you go along
and turn in the first right-hand turn, and I'll be up with you soon.
Maybe you might make room for the trout." Room for him as well, they
assured him; they were in luck to find him, they explained. "Well, I
guess I'll trust my neck with you," he said to Bertie, the skillful
driver; "'tain't five minutes' risk." The buggy leaned, and its springs
bent as he climbed in, wedging his mature bulk between their slim
shapes. The gelding looked round the shaft at them. "Protestin', are
you?" he said to it. "These light-weight stoodents spile you!" So the
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