| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson: The djavel or the javelin
Has, you observe, gone bravely in,
And you may hear that weapon whack
Bang through the middle of his back.
HENCE WE MAY LEARN THAT ABBOTS SHOULD
NEVER GO WALKING IN A WOOD.
Poem: IV
The frozen peaks he once explored,
But now he's dead and by the board.
How better far at home to have stayed
Attended by the parlour maid,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: the next day to see the Chinese junk, so at three the next day we
repaired to her house. Her sisters (Miss Burdetts) and Mr. Rogers
were all the party. At the junk for the first time I saw Metternich
and the Princess, his wife.
LETTER: To W.D.B.
LONDON, June 29, 1848
My dear W.: . . . When I last left off I was going to dine at Miss
Coutts's to meet the Duchess of Cambridge. The party was brilliant,
including the Duke of Wellington, Lord and Lady Douro, Lady Jersey
and the beautiful Lady Clementina Villiers, her daughter, etc. When
royal people arrive everybody rises and remains standing while they
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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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: grey scimitars, are Solens, Razor-fish (Solen siliqua and S.
ensis), burrowers in the sand by that foot which protrudes from one
end, nimble in escaping from the Torquay boys, whom you will see
boring for them with a long iron screw, on the sands at low tide.
They are very good to eat, these razor-fish; at least, for those
who so think them; and abound in millions upon all our sandy
shores. (3)
Now for the tapering brown spires. They are Turritellae, snail-
like animals (though the form of the shell is different), who crawl
and browse by thousands on the beds of Zostera, or grass wrack,
which you see thrown about on the beach, and which grows naturally
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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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: wanted, and did the work which was required of it, else we had not
been here now. Let us be thankful that we have had leisure for
science; and show now in war that our science has at least not
unmanned us.
Moreover, Natural History, if not fifty years ago, certainly a
hundred years ago, was hardly worthy of men of practical common
sense. After, indeed, Linne, by his invention of generic and
specific names, had made classification possible, and by his own
enormous labours had shown how much could be done when once a
method was established, the science has grown rapidly enough. But
before him little or nothing had been put into form definite enough
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