| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: over her all that time that she is casting her spawn, but touches her not.
I might say more of this, but it might be thought curiosity or worse, and
shall therefore forbear it; and take up so much of your attention as to
tell you that the best of Pikes are noted to be in rivers; next, those in
great ponds or meres; and the worst, in small ponds.
But before I proceed further, I am to tell you, that there is a great
antipathy betwixt the Pike and some frogs: and this may appear to the
reader of Dubravius, a bishop in Bohemia, who, in his book Of Fish and
Fish-ponds, relates what he says he saw with his own eyes, and could
not forbear to tell the reader. Which was:
"As he and the bishop Thurzo were walking by a large pond in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: and by what more deare, a better proposer could charge
you withall; be euen and direct with me, whether you
were sent for or no
Rosin. What say you?
Ham. Nay then I haue an eye of you: if you loue me
hold not off
Guil. My Lord, we were sent for
Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
preuent your discouery of your secricie to the King and
Queene: moult no feather, I haue of late, but wherefore
I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custome of exercise;
Hamlet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: which was in reality more perfect than mine, and which even possessed
within itself all the perfections of which I could form any idea; that is
to say, in a single word, which was God. And to this I added that, since I
knew some perfections which I did not possess, I was not the only being in
existence (I will here, with your permission, freely use the terms of the
schools); but, on the contrary, that there was of necessity some other
more perfect Being upon whom I was dependent, and from whom I had received
all that I possessed; for if I had existed alone, and independently of
every other being, so as to have had from myself all the perfection,
however little, which I actually possessed, I should have been able, for
the same reason, to have had from myself the whole remainder of
Reason Discourse |
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 Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: weeping, as stones, however large, are invisible in Alpine cataracts
swollen by the melting of the snows.
This is the inexperience of virtue. Vice asks for nothing, as we have
seen in Madame Marneffe; it gets everything offered to it. Women of
that stamp are never exacting till they have made themselves
indispensable, or when a man has to be worked as a quarry is worked
where the lime is rather scarce--going to ruin, as the quarry-men say.
On hearing these words, "Two hundred thousand francs," Crevel
understood all. He cheerfully raised the Baroness, saying insolently:
"Come, come, bear up, mother," which Adeline, in her distraction,
failed to hear. The scene was changing its character. Crevel was
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