| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: lay in Shakespear's power. When poverty is abolished, and leisure and
grace of life become general, the only plays surviving from our epoch
which will have any relation to life as it will be lived then will be
those in which none of the persons represented are troubled with want
of money or wretched drudgery. Our plays of poverty and squalor, now
the only ones that are true to the life of the majority of living men,
will then be classed with the records of misers and monsters, and read
only by historical students of social pathology.
Then consider Shakespear's kings and lords and gentlemen! Would even
John Ball or Jeremiah complain that they are flattered? Surely a more
mercilessly exposed string of scoundrels never crossed the stage. The
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: value of his sables, which, when I came to England, I found worth
near two hundred pounds. He accepted the tea, and one piece of the
damask, and one of the pieces of gold, which had a fine stamp upon
it, of the Japan coinage, which I found he took for the rarity of
it, but would not take any more: and he sent word by my servant
that he desired to speak with me.
When I came to him he told me I knew what had passed between us,
and hoped I would not move him any more in that affair; but that,
since I had made such a generous offer to him, he asked me if I had
kindness enough to offer the same to another person that he would
name to me, in whom he had a great share of concern. In a word, he
Robinson Crusoe |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
A heart as sound and free
Is in the whole world thou canst find,
That heart I'll give to thee.
"Come, gentlemen," I cried, "this is folly, sheer madness.
You can never deal with the matter in this way. Think of the
girl who is singing down yonder. What would happen to her,
what would she suffer, from scandal, from her own feelings, if
either of you should be killed, or even seriously hurt by the
other? There must be no quarrel between you."
"Certainly," said Keene, whose poise, if shaken at all,
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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 Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: citizen. The Catholic party, led by Lacordaire and Montalembert,
united with the Socialists--as to-day in Belgium--to oppose the
Government.
A campaign in favour of electoral reform ended in 1848 in a fresh
riot, which unexpectedly overthrew Louis-Philippe.
His fall was far less justifiable than that of Charles X. There
was little with which he could be reproached. Doubtless he was
suspicious of universal suffrage, but the French Revolution had
more than once been quite suspicious of it. Louis-Philippe not
being, like the Directory, an absolute ruler, could not, as the
latter had done, annul unfavourable elections.
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