| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: the Lamb, "How dare you muddle the water from which I am
drinking?"
"Nay, master, nay," said Lambikin; "if the water be muddy up
there, I cannot be the cause of it, for it runs down from you to
me."
"Well, then," said the Wolf, "why did you call me bad names
this time last year?"
"That cannot be," said the Lamb; "I am only six months old."
"I don't care," snarled the Wolf; "if it was not you it was
your father;" and with that he rushed upon the poor little Lamb
and
Aesop's Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: nights of uproar, men in armour rolling and resounding down the
stairs of heaven, the rain hissing on the village streets, the wild
bull's-eye of the storm flashing all night long into the bare inn-
chamber - the same sweet return of day, the same unfathomable blue
of noon, the same high-coloured, halcyon eves - and above all, if
he had anything like as good a comrade, anything like as keen a
relish for what he saw, and what he ate, and the rivers that he
bathed in, and the rubbish that he wrote, I would exchange estates
to-day with the poor exile, and count myself a gainer.
But there was another point of similarity between the two journeys,
for which the Arethusa was to pay dear: both were gone upon in
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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 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: republican ideas-writers, lawyers, officers and civil employees, whose
influence rested upon the personal antipathies of the country for Louis
Philippe, upon reminiscences of the old Republic, upon the republican
faith of a number of enthusiasts, and, above all, upon the spirit of
French patriotism, whose hatred of the treaties of Vienna and of the
alliance with England kept them perpetually on the alert. The
"National" owed a large portion of its following under Louis Philippe to
this covert imperialism, that, later under the republic, could stand up
against it as a deadly competitor in the person of Louis Bonaparte. The
fought the aristocracy of finance just the same as did the rest of the
bourgeois opposition. The polemic against the budget, which in France,
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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: with as small delay as possible. I will not deny that I fear you
have made a mistake and honoured my poor house by inadvertence;
for, to speak openly, I cannot at all remember your appearance.
Let me put the question without unnecessary circumlocution -
between gentlemen of honour a word will suffice - Under whose roof
do you suppose yourself to be?"
"That of Mr. Morris," replied the other, with a prodigious display
of confusion, which had been visibly growing upon him throughout
the last few words.
"Mr. John or Mr. James Morris?" inquired the host.
"I really cannot tell you," returned the unfortunate guest. "I am
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