| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: until dawn, careered in sledges about the most silent and stately of
capitals, and returned with Lionel, discoursing upon autocracy and
assassination, Japan, the Russian destiny, and the government of
Peter the Great. That excursion was the most after his heart of all
the dispersed employments of his first year. Through the rest of
the winter he kept himself very fit, and still further qualified
that nervous dislike for the horse that he had acquired from
Prothero by hunting once a week in Essex. He was incurably a bad
horseman; he rode without sympathy, he was unready and convulsive at
hedges and ditches, and he judged distances badly. His white face
and rigid seat and a certain joylessness of bearing in the saddle
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: Where everything maimed, ill-famed, lustful, untrustful, over-mellow,
sickly-yellow and seditious, festereth pernicious:--
--Spit on the great city and turn back!--
Here, however, did Zarathustra interrupt the foaming fool, and shut his
mouth.--
Stop this at once! called out Zarathustra, long have thy speech and thy
species disgusted me!
Why didst thou live so long by the swamp, that thou thyself hadst to become
a frog and a toad?
Floweth there not a tainted, frothy, swamp-blood in thine own veins, when
thou hast thus learned to croak and revile?
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: some unseen falls. Pete and Maggie entered the hall and took chairs
at a table near the door. The woman who was seated there made
an attempt to occupy Pete's attention and, failing, went away.
Three weeks had passed since the girl had left home. The air of
spaniel-like dependence had been magnified and showed its direct
effect in the peculiar off-handedness and ease of Pete's ways toward her.
She followed Pete's eyes with hers, anticipating with smiles
gracious looks from him.
A woman of brilliance and audacity, accompanied by a mere boy,
came into the place and took seats near them.
At once Pete sprang to his feet, his face beaming with glad surprise.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
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 The Pupil by Henry James: always spent on the quays, in a rummage of the dusty boxes that
garnish the parapets. Such occasions helped them to live, for
their books ran low very soon after the beginning of their
acquaintance. Pemberton had a good many in England, but he was
obliged to write to a friend and ask him kindly to get some fellow
to give him something for them.
If they had to relinquish that summer the advantage of the bracing
climate the young man couldn't but suspect this failure of the cup
when at their very lips to have been the effect of a rude jostle of
his own. This had represented his first blow-out, as he called it,
with his patrons; his first successful attempt - though there was
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