| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: Norton the First. "San Francisco is public-spirited in what
concerns its Emperor; and indeed, sir, of all my domains, it is
my favourite city."
"Come," said I, when he was gone, "I prefer that customer to
the lot."
"It's really rather a distinction," Jim admitted. "I think it must
have been the umbrella racket that attracted him."
We were distinguished under the rose by the notice of other and
greater men. There were days when Jim wore an air of unusual
capacity and resolve, spoke with more brevity like one pressed
for time, and took often on his tongue such phrases as
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: inclined to say, That must be true. It is so beneath the dignity of
history, so quaint and unexpected, that it is all the more likely
NOT to have been invented.
So with that other story--How young Cyrus, giving out that his
grandfather had made him general of the Persians, summoned them all,
each man with a sickle in his hand, into a prairie full of thorns,
and bade them clear it in one day; and how when they, like loyal
men, had finished, he bade them bathe, and next day he took them
into a great meadow and feasted them with corn and wine, and all
that his father's farm would yield, and asked them which day they
liked best; and, when they answered as was to be expected, how he
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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 Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: that enlightened public opinion no longer tolerates a policy of
silence upon a question of the most vital importance. Almost
simultaneously in England and America, two incidents have broken
through the prejudice and the guarded silence of centuries. At the
church Congress in Birmingham, October 12, 1921, Lord Dawson, the
king's physician, in criticizing the report of the Lambeth Conference
concerning Birth Control, delivered an address defending this
practice. Of such bravery and eloquence that it could not be ignored,
this address electrified the entire British public. It aroused a
storm of abuse, and yet succeeded, as no propaganda could, in
mobilizing the forces of progress and intelligence in the support of
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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 The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: On Earth, as there be fields and trees
Outside a jail-yard, am I wrong
If now I sing Him a new song?
Your world is in yourself, my friend,
For your endurance to the end;
And all the Peace there is on Earth
Is faith in what your world is worth,
And saying, without any lies,
Your world could not be otherwise."
"One might say that and then be shot,"
I told him; and he said: "Why not?"
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