| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: our beginning thereon. Nothing can be farther from truth than this;
for if America had only a twentieth part of the naval force of Britain,
she would be by far an overmatch for her; because, as we neither have,
nor claim any foreign dominion, our whole force would be employed on
our own coast, where we should, in the long run, have two to one the advantage
of those who had three or four thousand miles to sail over,
before they could attack us, and the same distance to return
in order to refit and recruit. And although Britain, by her fleet,
hath a check over our trade to Europe, we have as large a one over her trade
to the West Indies, which, by laying in the neighbourhood of the continent,
is entirely at its mercy.
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: His argent forehead, like a rising moon
Over the dusky hills of meeting brows,
Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon
Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse
For Cytheraea, the first silky down
Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are strong and
brown;
And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds
Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie,
And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds
Is in his homestead for the thievish fly
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: and late - who were already beating the linen in their floating
lavatory on the river. They were very merry and matutinal in their
ways; plunged their arms boldly in, and seemed not to feel the
shock. It would be dispiriting to me, this early beginning and
first cold dabble of a most dispiriting day's work. But I believe
they would have been as unwilling to change days with us as we
could be to change with them. They crowded to the door to watch us
paddle away into the thin sunny mists upon the river; and shouted
heartily after us till we were through the bridge.
CHANGED TIMES
THERE is a sense in which those mists never rose from off our
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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 Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: marvellously well; and, like an ever-indulgent providence, he lent
them his aid whenever they asked for it. But in order to conceal from
his dignified and more valuable clients whatever might be compromising
in the /clientele/ he really preferred, Desroches had his days of
domesticity when he was husband and father, especially on Sundays. He
appeared in the Bois de Boulogne in a modest caleche beside his wife
(whose ugliness revealed the size of her /dot/), with three children
on the front seat, who were luckless enough to resemble their mother.
This family picture, these virtuous Dominical habits, recalled so
little the week-day Desroches, dining in cafes with all the male and
female /viveurs/ of renown, that one of them, Malaga, a circus-rider,
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