| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: The yottowas nudged and whispered, the commons murmured aloud;
Tittering fell upon all at sight of the impudent thing,
At the sight of a gift unroyal flung in the face of a king.
And the face of the king turned white and red with anger and shame
In their midst; and the heart in his body was water and then was flame;
Till of a sudden, turning, he gripped an aito hard,
A youth that stood with his omare, (8) one of the daily guard,
And spat in his ear a command, and pointed and uttered a name,
And hid in the shade of the house his impotent anger and shame.
Now Tamatea the fool was far on the homeward way,
The rising night in his face, behind him the dying day.
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: which says, "Germany is beaten. Let us forgive and forget." That is not
Christianity. There is nothing Christian about it. It is merely
sentimental slush, sloppy shirking of anything that compels national
alertness, or effort, or self-discipline, or self-denial; a moral
cowardice that pushes away any fact which disturbs a shallow, torpid,
irresponsible, self-indulgent optimism.
Our golden age of isolation is over. To attempt to return to it would be
a mere pernicious day-dream. To hark back to Washington's warning against
entangling alliances is as sensible as to go by a map of the world made
in 1796. We are coupled to the company of nations like a car in the
middle of a train, only more inevitably and permanently, for we cannot
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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 Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: several years' standing quite to herself. The mother remembers
now how Hazel once stayed for hours after school and told a story
in explanation that they felt sure was untrue. The teachers used
to tell the mother that Hazel seemed as if she couldn't pay
attention to her school work. One teacher reported to us that
she remembers Hazel as a girl who seemed peculiar and hysterical.
The other girls called her queer and used to steer clear of her.
The mother reports Hazel as being for several years impulsive,
erratic, talkative, untidy, and rather dishonest in other small
ways besides lying--all this in spite of vigorous home
discipline. The girl at one time under the influence of revival
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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 Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: turn it to very good account, I assure you.
PRAED. Pooh! In what way?
VIVIE. I shall set up chambers in the City, and work at
actuarial calculations and conveyancing. Under cover of that I
shall do some law, with one eye on the Stock Exchange all the
time. Ive come down here by myself to read law: not for a
holiday, as my mother imagines. I hate holidays.
PRAED. You make my blood run cold. Are you to have no romance,
no beauty in your life?
VIVIE. I dont care for either, I assure you.
PRAED. You cant mean that.
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