| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: occasion to sit down to meditate upon the cause of his failure, and
tried to overcome it with many subtly reasoned changes of the fly--
which is a vain thing to do, but well adapted to make one forgetful
of the flight of time.
So I waited for him near an hour, and then ate my half of the
sandwiches and boiled eggs, smoked a solitary pipe, and fell into a
light sleep at the foot of the biggest birch tree, an old and trusty
friend of mine. It seemed like a very slight sound that roused me:
the snapping of a dry twig in the thicket, or a gentle splash in the
water, differing in some indefinable way from the steady murmur of
the stream; something it was, I knew not what, that made me aware of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: Guarin was not with the cacique, upon the _Marigalante_.
He would not come. I had a vision of him, in the forest,
seated motionless, communing with the deepest self to
which he could reach, seeking light with the other light-
seekers.
Christopherus Columbus beckoned me and I went the
round of the ship with him and others and his guest, this
far-away son of Great India. So, presently, he was taken to
view the horses and the cattle. Whoever hath seen lions
brought to a court for show hath seen some shrinking from
too-close and heard timorous asking if the bars be really
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: rise of that co-operative movement, which will do more than any
social or political impulse in our day for the safety of English
society, and the loyalty of the English working classes. And
meanwhile--ere that movement shall have spread throughout the length
and breadth of the land, and have been applied, as it surely will be
some day, not only to distribution, not only to manufacture, but to
agriculture likewise--till then, the best judges of the working
men's worth must be their employers; and especially the employers of
the northern manufacturing population. What their judgment is, is
sufficiently notorious. Those who depend most on the working men,
who have the best opportunities of knowing them, trust them most
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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 Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: administration, and a good many employees. And this governor of the
dead has a salary, with emoluments, and acts under powers of which
none complain; he plays despot at his ease. His lodge is not a place
of business, though it has departments where the book-keeping of
receipts, expenses, and profits, is carried on. The man is not a
/suisse/, nor a concierge, nor actually a porter. The gate which
admits the dead stands wide open; and though there are monuments and
buildings to be cared for, he is not a care-taker. In short, he is an
indefinable anomaly, an authority which participates in all, and yet
is nothing,--an authority placed, like the dead on whom it is based,
outside of all. Nevertheless, this exceptional man grows out of the
Ferragus |
