| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: spirits, and were in themselves but walking putrefied carcases whose
breath was infectious and their sweat poison, and yet were as well to
look on as other people, and even knew it not themselves; I say, they
all allowed that it was really true in fact, but they knew not how to
propose a discovery.
My friend Dr Heath was of opinion that it might be known by the
smell of their breath; but then, as he said, who durst smell to that
breath for his information? since, to know it, he must draw the stench
of the plague up into his own brain, in order to distinguish the smell!
I have heard it was the opinion of others that it might be distinguished
by the party's breathing upon a piece of glass, where, the breath
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: digest his food.[25]
[23] Reading after Courier {rakhis ge men}. See Virg. "Georg." iii.
87, "at duplex agitur per lumbos spina." "In a horse that is in
good case, the back is broad, and the spine does not stick up like
a ridge, but forms a kind of furrow on the back" (John Martyn); "a
full back," as we say.
[24] Or, "in proportion to." See Courier ("Du Commandement de la
Cavalerie at de l'Equitation": deux livres de Xenophon, traduits
par un officier d'artillerie a cheval), note ad loc. p. 83.
[25] i.e. "and keep in good condition."
The broader and shorter the loins the more easily will the horse raise
On Horsemanship |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: an infant, and full of loving kindness; Nature had intended her for
all the pleasures, all the joys, and all the fatigues of motherhood.
Mademoiselle Cormon did not possess in her person an obliging
auxiliary to her desires. She had no other beauty than that very
improperly called la beaute du diable, which consists of a buxom
freshness of youth that the devil, theologically speaking, could never
have,--though perhaps the expression may be explained by the constant
desire that must surely possess him to cool and refresh himself. The
feet of the heiress were broad and flat. Her leg, which she often
exposed to sight by her manner (be it said without malice) of lifting
her gown when it rained, could never have been taken for the leg of a
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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 Heroes by Charles Kingsley: came the Golden Ram, and took them on his back, and vanished.
Then madness came upon that foolish king, Athamas, and ruin
upon Ino and her children. For Athamas killed one of them in
his fury, and Ino fled from him with the other in her arms,
and leaped from a cliff into the sea, and was changed into a
dolphin, such as you have seen, which wanders over the waves
for ever sighing, with its little one clasped to its breast.
But the people drove out King Athamas, because he had killed
his child; and he roamed about in his misery, till he came to
the Oracle in Delphi. And the Oracle told him that he must
wander for his sin, till the wild beasts should feast him as
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