| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: kissed him, embraced him, hugged him, cried, laughed, hallooed,
jumped about, danced, sang; then cried again, wrung his hands, beat
his own face and head; and then sang and jumped about again like a
distracted creature. It was a good while before I could make him
speak to me or tell me what was the matter; but when he came a
little to himself he told me that it was his father.
It is not easy for me to express how it moved me to see what
ecstasy and filial affection had worked in this poor savage at the
sight of his father, and of his being delivered from death; nor
indeed can I describe half the extravagances of his affection after
this: for he went into the boat and out of the boat a great many
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: relation of the Veiled Being to that living reality in our lives who
is, in his terminology, the true God. Speaking from the point of
view of practical religion, he is restricting and defining the word
God, as meaning only the personal God of mankind, he is restricting
it so as to exclude all cosmogony and ideas of providence from our
religious thought and leave nothing but the essentials of the
religious life.
Many people, whom one would class as rather liberal Christians of an
Arian or Arminian complexion, may find the larger part of this book
acceptable to them if they will read "the Christ God" where the
writer has written "God." They will then differ from him upon
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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 Market-Place by Harold Frederic: Once or twice she went to the door and looked out upon
the rain-soaked street. A tradesman's assistant, opposite,
was rolling the iron shutters down for the night.
If business in hats was over for the day, how much
more so in books! Her shop had never been fitted
with shutters--for what reason she could not guess.
The opened pages of numerous volumes were displayed close
against the window, but no one had ever broken a pane
to get at them. Apparently literature raised no desires
in the criminal breast. To close the shop there was nothing
to do but lock and bolt the door and turn out the lights.
The Market-Place |
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 Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: to Forty Mile. Good it was to see white faces once again, so we
put into the bank. And that winter was a hard winter. The
darkness and the cold drew down upon us, and with them the famine.
To each man the agent of the Company gave forty pounds of flour
and twenty of bacon. There were no beans. And, the dogs howled
always, and there were flat bellies and deep-lined faces, and
strong men became weak, and weak men died. There was also much
scurvy.
"Then came we together in the store one night, and the empty
shelves made us feel our own emptiness the more. We talked low,
by the light of the fire, for the candles had been set aside for
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