| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: perasset, saith Tacitus of Galba; but of Vespasian
he saith, Solus imperantium, Vespasianus mutatus
in melius; though the one was meant of sufficiency,
the other of manners, and affection. It is an assured
sign of a worthy and generous spirit, whom honor
amends. For honor is, or should be, the place of
virtue; and as in nature, things move violently to
their place, and calmly in their place, so virtue in
ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm.
All rising to great place is by a winding star; and
if there be factions, it is good to side a man's self,
Essays of Francis Bacon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: ridge of a dust-grey arid hill by the red-and-white-striped pile
of the Notre Dame de la Garde.
All this came to pass as I had foreseen in the fullness of my
very recent experience. But also something not foreseen by me
did happen, something which causes me to remember my last outing
with the pilots. It was on this occasion that my hand touched,
for the first time, the side of an English ship.
No fresh breeze had come with the dawn, only the steady little
draught got a more keen edge on it as the eastern sky became
bright and glassy with a clean, colourless light. It was while
we were all ashore on the islet that a steamer was picked up by
Some Reminiscences |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: simpler, monotonous arithmetical toil; that, as there is no cause for
supposing that the tailor or shoemaker needs less intellect in his calling
than the soldier or prize-fighter, so there is nothing to suggest that, in
the past, woman has not expended as much pure intellect in the mass of her
callings as the man in his; while in those highly specialised intellectual
occupations, in which long and uninterrupted training tending to one point
is necessary, such as the liberal professions and arts, that, although
woman has practically been excluded from the requisite training, and the
freedom to place herself in the positions in which they can be pursued,
that yet, by force of innate genius and gifts in such directions, she has
continually broken through the seemingly insuperable obstacles, and again
|
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 Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: took her the month's salary.
"Well, Saillard, you look as if you had lost all your friends! Do
speak; do, pray, tell us something," cried his wife when he came back
into the room.
Saillard, after making a little sign to his daughter, turned on his
heel to keep himself from talking politics before strangers. When
Monsieur Mitral and the vicar had departed, Saillard rolled back the
card-table and sat down in an armchair in the attitude he always
assumed when about to tell some office-gossip,--a series of movements
which answered the purpose of the three knocks given at the Theatre-
Francais. After binding his wife, daughter, and son-in-law to the
|
