| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe; 'tis my
slowness that I do not; for I know you lack not folly to commit
them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.
CLOWN.
'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.
COUNTESS.
Well, sir.
CLOWN.
No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of
the rich are damned: but if I may have your ladyship's good will
to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: the fact that all mankind are agreed in thinking themselves wiser than
others in some respects, and inferior to them in others? In the hour of
danger they are ready to fall down and worship any one who is their
superior in wisdom as if he were a god. And the world is full of men who
are asking to be taught and willing to be ruled, and of other men who are
willing to rule and teach them. All which implies that men do judge of one
another's impressions, and think some wise and others foolish. How will
Protagoras answer this argument? For he cannot say that no one deems
another ignorant or mistaken. If you form a judgment, thousands and tens
of thousands are ready to maintain the opposite. The multitude may not and
do not agree in Protagoras' own thesis that 'Man is the measure of all
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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 Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: with our saddle-bags and James More's portmanteau; I picked up
Catriona's bundle where she had dropped it on the stair; and we were
setting forth out of that dangerous house, when Bazin stopped the way
with cries and gesticulations. He had whipped under a table when the
swords were drawn, but now he was as bold as a lion. There was his
bill to be settled, there was a chair broken, Alan had sat among his
dinner things, James More had fled.
"Here," I cried, "pay yourself," and flung him down some Lewie d'ors;
for I thought it was no time to be accounting.
He sprang upon that money, and we passed him by, and ran forth into the
open. Upon three sides of the house were seamen hasting and closing
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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 Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: her habit with his pocket-handkerchief. 'Come, please; we will go
on together.' Her distress seemed to make things simple again. It
was as if the cloud that hung over them had melted as she wept, and
lifted, and drifted a little further on. For the moment, naturally,
nothing mattered except that she should be comforted. As she walked
by his side shaken with her effort at self-control, he had to resist
the impulse to touch her. His hand tingled to do its part in
soothing her, his arm ached to protect her, while he vaguely felt an
element of right, of justice, in her tears; they were in a manner
his own. What he did was to turn and ask the syce following if he
had loosened the Turk's saddle-girths.
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