| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: coast being also dangerous, the nights long, and the voyage
hazardous, go to sea no more, but lie by, the ships are unrigged,
the sails, etc., carried ashore, the top-masts struck, and they
ride moored in the river, under the advantages and security of
sound ground, and a high woody shore, where they lie as safe as in
a wet dock; and it was a very agreeable sight to see, perhaps two
hundred sail of ships, of all sizes, lie in that posture every
winter. All this while, which was usually from Michaelmas to Lady
Day, the masters lived calm and secure with their families in
Ipswich; and enjoying plentifully, what in the summer they got
laboriously at sea, and this made the town of Ipswich very populous
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: manly virtue.
[1] See "Hell." V. iv. 32.
[2] Cf. "Cyrop." II. i. 22.
[3] Or, "pit face to face."
What method he adopted to engage these combatants I will now explain.
It is on this wise. Their ephors select three men out of the whole
body of the citizens in the prime of life. These three are named
Hippagretai, or masters of the horse. Each of these selects one
hundred others, being bound to explain for what reason he prefers in
honour these and disapproves of those. The result is that those who
fail to obtain the distinction are now at open war, not only with
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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 The Message by Honore de Balzac: flesh, but the dying boy did not utter a sound as I extricated it
as gently as possible from the wound which it had made. He had
scarcely given me the necessary directions--I was to go to his
home at La Charite-sur-Loire for his mistress' love-letters,
which he conjured me to return to her--when he grew speechless in
the middle of a sentence; but from his last gesture, I understood
that the fatal key would be my passport in his mother's house. It
troubled him that he was powerless to utter a single word to
thank me, for of my wish to serve him he had no doubt. He looked
wistfully at me for a moment, then his eyelids drooped in token
of farewell, and his head sank, and he died. His death was the
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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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: stand in the way of other matter.
* * * * * * *
'See what a strange desultory epistle I am writing to you, and yet I
feel so weary that I long to leave my desk and go to the couch.
'My dear wife and Jane desire their kindest remembrances: I hear
them in the next room:... I forget--but not you, my dear Tyndall,
for I am
'Ever yours,
'M. Faraday.'
This weariness subsided when he relinquished his work, and I have a
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