| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: was forth again, a little late for dinner, the lamps springing into
light in the blue winter's even, and THE MILLER, or THE ROVER, or
some kindred drama clutched against his side - on what gay feet he
ran, and how he laughed aloud in exultation! I can hear that
laughter still. Out of all the years of my life, I can recall but
one home-coming to compare with these, and that was on the night
when I brought back with me the ARABIAN ENTERTAINMENTS in the fat,
old, double-columned volume with the prints. I was just well into
the story of the Hunchback, I remember, when my clergyman-
grandfather (a man we counted pretty stiff) came in behind me. I
grew blind with terror. But instead of ordering the book away, he
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: sheeny, ending in fine, rosy nails, as if she had procured from Asia
some of the henna with which the Sultan's wives dye their fingertips.
A misfortune, of which she was unconscious, but which was torture to
Emilio, kept up a singular barrier between them. Massimilla, young as
she was, had the majestic bearing which mythological tradition
ascribes to Juno, the only goddess to whom it does not give a lover;
for Diana, the chaste Diana, loved! Jupiter alone could hold his own
with his divine better-half, on whom many English ladies model
themselves.
Emilio set his mistress far too high ever to touch her. A year hence,
perhaps, he might not be a victim to this noble error which attacks
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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 Common Sense by Thomas Paine: could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance; the distinctions
of rich, and poor, may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without
having recourse to the harsh, ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice.
Oppression is often the CONSEQUENCE, but seldom or never the MEANS of riches;
and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor,
it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
But there is another and greater distinction, for which no truly natural
or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men
into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature,
good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into
the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species,
Common Sense |
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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: Austin was suffered to learn Greek, the accomplishment was kept
secret like a piece of guilt. But whether this stealth was caused
by a backward movement in public thought since the time of Edward
Barron, or by the change from enlightened Norwich to barbarian
London, I have no means of judging.
When Fleeming presented his letter, he fell in love at first sight
with Mrs. Austin and the life, and atmosphere of the house. There
was in the society of the Austins, outward, stoical conformers to
the world, something gravely suggestive of essential eccentricity,
something unpretentiously breathing of intellectual effort, that
could not fail to hit the fancy of this hot-brained boy. The
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