| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: shores changing upon either hand, I kept counting my strokes and
forgetting the hundreds, the happiest animal in France.
DOWN THE OISE: CHURCH INTERIORS
WE made our first stage below Compiegne to Pont Sainte Maxence. I
was abroad a little after six the next morning. The air was
biting, and smelt of frost. In an open place a score of women
wrangled together over the day's market; and the noise of their
negotiation sounded thin and querulous like that of sparrows on a
winter's morning. The rare passengers blew into their hands, and
shuffled in their wooden shoes to set the blood agog. The streets
were full of icy shadow, although the chimneys were smoking
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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 Critias by Plato: fixed by the Isthmus, and that in the direction of the continent they
extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes; the boundary line
came down in the direction of the sea, having the district of Oropus on the
right, and with the river Asopus as the limit on the left. The land was
the best in the world, and was therefore able in those days to support a
vast army, raised from the surrounding people. Even the remnant of Attica
which now exists may compare with any region in the world for the variety
and excellence of its fruits and the suitableness of its pastures to every
sort of animal, which proves what I am saying; but in those days the
country was fair as now and yielded far more abundant produce. How shall I
establish my words? and what part of it can be truly called a remnant of
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