| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: becoming now of an unprecedented kind.
Few people without a training in science can realise the huge
isolation of the solar system. The sun with its specks of planets,
its dust of planetoids, and its impalpable comets, swims in a
vacant immensity that almost defeats the imagination. Beyond the
orbit of Neptune there is space, vacant so far as human observation
has penetrated, without warmth or light or sound, blank emptiness,
for twenty million times a million miles. That is the smallest
estimate of the distance to be traversed before the very nearest of
the stars is attained. And, saving a few comets more unsubstantial
than the thinnest flame, no matter had ever to human knowledge
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: Chicago, not so many years ago, in my proper person; where I had
failed to awaken much remark, except from the ticket collector; and
to think how much more gallant and persuasive were the fellows that
I now send instead of me, and how these are welcome in that quarter
to the sitter of Herr Platz, while their author was not very
welcome even in the villainous restaurant where he tried to eat a
meal and rather failed.
And this leads me directly to a confession. The photograph which
shall accompany this is not chosen as the most like, but the best-
looking. Put yourself in my place, and you will call this
pardonable. Even as it is, even putting forth a flattered
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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 Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: They marched along shoulder to shoulder.
Then a scream, shrill and high, rent the shuddering sky,
And they knew that some danger was near:
The Beaver turned pale to the tip of its tail,
And even the Butcher felt queer.
He thought of his childhood, left far far behind--
That blissful and innocent state--
The sound so exactly recalled to his mind
A pencil that squeaks on a slate!
"'Tis the voice of the Jubjub!" he suddenly cried.
(This man, that they used to call "Dunce.")
The Hunting of the Snark |
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 Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: inquiry, melancholy, and desire; or did I feel the emotions which
these words express? Or was there magnetism stealing into me from
the quiet man beside me? He left me with a bow before the concert
was over, and I saw him making his way out of the hall when it was
finished.
I had been sent in the carriage, of course; but several carriages
were in advance of it before the walk, and I waited there for
William to drive up. When he did so, I saw by the oscillatory
motion of his head, though his arms and whiphand were perfectly
correct, that he was inebriated. It was his first occasion of
meeting fellow-coachmen in full dress, and the occasion had proved
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