| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: vendetta the Duc de Soria, their master and a Henarez--the first who
had come to visit them since the time when the island belonged to the
Moors. More than a score of rifles were ready to point at Ferdinand of
Bourbon, son of a race which was still unknown when the Abencerrages
arrived as conquerors on the banks of the Loire.
My idea had been to live on the income of these huge estates, which,
unfortunately, we have so greatly neglected; but my stay there
convinced me that this was impossible, and that Queverdo's reports
were only too correct. The poor man had twenty-two lives at my
disposal, and not a single /real/; prairies of twenty thousand acres,
and not a house; virgin forests, and not a stick of furniture! A
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Too strong for the hands of a man to dissever or fire to consume;
And there, when the pigs come trotting, there shall the feast be spread,
There shall the eye of the morn enlighten the feasters dead.
So be it done; for I have a heart that pities your state,
And Nateva and Namunu-ura are fire and water for hate."
All was done as he said, and the gardens prospered; and now
The fame of their plenty went out, and word of it came to Vaiau.
For the men of Namunu-ura sailed, to the windward far,
Lay in the offing by south where the towns of the Tevas are,
And cast overboard of their plenty; and lo! at the Tevas feet
The surf on all of the beaches tumbled treasures of meat.
Ballads |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: kind of dragon's den, where tact and strength would be necessary to
save me from destruction. On February 11, 1853, the discourse was
given, and it ended happily. I allude to these things, that I may
mention that, though my aim and object in that lecture was to
subvert the notions both of Faraday and Plucker, and to establish in
opposition to their views what I regarded as the truth, it was very
far from producing in Faraday either enmity or anger. At the
conclusion of the lecture, he quitted his accustomed seat, crossed
the theatre to the corner into which I had shrunk, shook me by the
hand, and brought me back to the table. Once more, subsequently,
and in connection with a related question, I ventured to differ from
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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 Jungle by Upton Sinclair: audience were old campaigners, who had been to the places and
helped to make the vote, and could make appropriate comments:
Quincy, Illinois, from 189 to 831--that was where the mayor had
arrested a Socialist speaker! Crawford County, Kansas, from 285
to 1,975; that was the home of the "Appeal to Reason"! Battle
Creek, Michigan, from 4,261 to 10,184; that was the answer of
labor to the Citizens' Alliance Movement!
And then there were official returns from the various precincts
and wards of the city itself! Whether it was a factory district
or one of the "silk-stocking" wards seemed to make no particular
difference in the increase; but one of the things which surprised
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