| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: errand. I would have been glad of any passable excuse to lay it down;
but none being to be found, my uneasiness was no less great than if I
had been running to some desired pleasure. By shortly after one the
horse was at the waterside, and I could see a man walking it to and fro
till I should land, which vastly swelled my impatience. Andie ran the
moment of my liberation very fine, showing himself a man of his bare
word, but scarce serving his employers with a heaped measure; and by
about fifty seconds after two I was in the saddle and on the full
stretch for Stirling. In a little more than an hour I had passed that
town, and was already mounting Alan Water side, when the weather broke
in a small tempest. The rain blinded me, the wind had nearly beat me
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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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: 'You may imagine my delight when I came to know Mrs. Marcet
personally; how often I cast my thoughts backward, delighting to
connect the past and the present; how often, when sending a paper
to her as a thank-offering, I thought of my first instructress,
and such like thoughts will remain with me.
'I have some such thoughts even as regards your own father; who was,
I may say, the first who personally at Geneva, and afterwards by
correspondence, encouraged, and by that sustained me.'
Twelve or thirteen years ago Mr. Faraday and myself quitted the
Institution one evening together, to pay a visit to our friend Grove
in Baker Street. He took my arm at the door, and, pressing it to
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