| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the throne
is subject to be possessed by a minor at any age; all which time
the regency, acting under the cover a king, have every opportunity
and inducement to betray their trust. The same national misfortune happens,
when a king, worn out with age and infirmity , enters the last stage
of human weakness. In both these cases the public becomes a prey
to every miscreant, who can tamper successfully with the follies
either of age or infancy.
The most plausible plea, which hath ever been offered in favour of
hereditary succession, is, that it preserves a nation from civil wars;
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: In those which render from the mirror's plane
A vision back, since each thing comes to pass
By means of the two airs. Now, in the glass
The right part of our members is observed
Upon the left, because, when comes the image
Hitting against the level of the glass,
'Tis not returned unshifted; but forced off
Backwards in line direct and not oblique,-
Exactly as whoso his plaster-mask
Should dash, before 'twere dry, on post or beam,
And it should straightway keep, at clinging there,
Of The Nature of Things |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: mountain, it would have gone on to the sea and formed more islands.
Such as it was, it did us good service. The steepness increased, but
these stone steps allowed us to rise with facility, and even with
such rapidity that, having rested for a moment while my companions
continued their ascent, I perceived them already reduced by distance
to microscopic dimensions.
At seven we had ascended the two thousand steps of this grand
staircase, and we had attained a bulge in the mountain, a kind of bed
on which rested the cone proper of the crater.
Three thousand two hundred feet below us stretched the sea. We had
passed the limit of perpetual snow, which, on account of the moisture
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
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 Little Britain by Washington Irving: where we sometimes had a good old English country dance to
the tune of Sir Roger de Coverley. Once a year, also, the
neighbors would gather together, and go on a gypsy party to
Epping Forest. It would have done any man's heart good to
see the merriment that took place here as we banqueted on the
grass under the trees. How we made the woods ring with
bursts of laughter at the songs of little Wagstaff and the merry
undertaker! After dinner, too, the young folks would play at
blind-man's-buff and hide-and-seek; and it was amusing to see
them tangled among the briers, and to hear a fine romping girl
now and then squeak from among the bushes. The elder folks
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