| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: supreme maritime power? Yet these are the very things, you see, which
I need for my ships. Timber I must have from one, and from another
iron, from a third bronze, from a fourth linen yarn, from a fifth wax,
etc. Besides which they will not suffer their antagonists in those
parts[14] to carry these products elsewhither, or they will cease to
use the sea. Accordingly I, without one stroke of labour, extract from
the land and possess all these good things, thanks to my supremacy on
the sea; whilst not a single other state possesses the two of them.
Not timber, for instance, and yarn together, the same city. But where
yarn is abundant, the soil will be light and devoid of timber. And in
the same way bronze and iron will not be products of the same city.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: the word sacra, and construed it "holy," instead of "cursed."
But I see no necessity for having recourse to so improbable a
conjecture.
v. 41. The fierce encounter.] See Hell, Canto VII. 26.
v. 46. With shorn locks.] Ibid. 58.
v. 57. The twin sorrow of Jocasta's womb.] Eteocles and
Polynices
v. 71. A renovated world.] Virg. Ecl. iv. 5
v. 100. That Greek.] Homer
v. 107. Of thy train. ] Of those celebrated in thy Poem."
v. 112. Tiresias' daughter.] Dante appears to have forgotten
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: be. Away in the extreme south, a little hill of fog arose
against the sky above the general surface, and as it had
already caught the sun, it shone on the horizon like the
topsails of some giant ship. There were huge waves,
stationary, as it seemed, like waves in a frozen sea; and
yet, as I looked again, I was not sure but they were moving
after all, with a slow and august advance. And while I was
yet doubting, a promontory of the some four or five miles
away, conspicuous by a bouquet of tall pines, was in a single
instant overtaken and swallowed up. It reappeared in a
little, with its pines, but this time as an islet, and only
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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 New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: Somehow or other, by hook and crook, and between the three of us,
we got Bernard Huddlestone bundled upstairs and laid upon the bed
in MY UNCLE'S ROOM. During the whole process, which was rough
enough, he gave no sign of consciousness, and he remained, as we
had thrown him, without changing the position of a finger. His
daughter opened his shirt and began to wet his head and bosom;
while Northmour and I ran to the window. The weather continued
clear; the moon, which was now about full, had risen and shed a
very clear light upon the links; yet, strain our eyes as we might,
we could distinguish nothing moving. A few dark spots, more or
less, on the uneven expanse were not to be identified; they might
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