| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: routed, as above, Sir William Campion was obliged to make a front
to the left, and lining the hedge with his musketeers, made a stand
with a body of pikes against the enemy's horse, and prevented them
entering the lane. Here that gallant gentleman was killed with a
carabine shot; and after a very gallant resistance, the horse on
the right being also overpowered, the word was given to retreat,
which, however, was done in such good order, the regiments of
reserve standing drawn up at the end of the street, ready to
receive the enemy's horse upon the points of their pikes, that the
royal troops came on in the openings between the regiments, and
entered the town with very little loss, and in very good order.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: being again supplied with their own ministers, or others presented
where the minister was dead, things returned to their old channel again.
One mischief always introduces another. These terrors and
apprehensions of the people led them into a thousand weak, foolish,
and wicked things, which they wanted not a sort of people really
wicked to encourage them to: and this was running about to fortune-
tellers, cunning-men, and astrologers to know their fortune, or, as it is
vulgarly expressed, to have their fortunes told them, their nativities
calculated, and the like; and this folly presently made the town swarm
with a wicked generation of pretenders to magic, to the black art, as
they called it, and I know not what; nay, to a thousand worse dealings
A Journal of the Plague Year |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: silently through the clouded shade, while the second stood
above her, gently oscillating to and fro to lull the muling
baby. I was struck a great way off with something religious
in the attitude of these two unkempt and haggard women; and I
drew near faster, but still cautiously, to hear what they
were saying. Surely on them the spirit of death and decay
had descended; I had no education to dread here: should I not
have a chance of seeing nature? Alas! a pawnbroker could not
have been more practical and commonplace, for this was what
the kneeling woman said to the woman upright - this and
nothing more: 'Eh, what extravagance!'
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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 Menexenus by Plato: history is disguised. The taking of Athens is hardly mentioned.
The author of the Menexenus, whether Plato or not, is evidently intending
to ridicule the practice, and at the same time to show that he can beat the
rhetoricians in their own line, as in the Phaedrus he may be supposed to
offer an example of what Lysias might have said, and of how much better he
might have written in his own style. The orators had recourse to their
favourite loci communes, one of which, as we find in Lysias, was the
shortness of the time allowed them for preparation. But Socrates points
out that they had them always ready for delivery, and that there was no
difficulty in improvising any number of such orations. To praise the
Athenians among the Athenians was easy,--to praise them among the
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