| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: soft ground and the tender, and fell down into valleys, and the
hard earth and the rocks abide mountains, when the soft earth and
tender waxed nesh through the water, and fell and became valleys.
Of Paradise ne can I not speak properly. For I was not there. It
is far beyond. And that forthinketh me. And also I was not
worthy. But as I have heard say of wise men beyond, I shall tell
you with good will.
Paradise terrestrial, as wise men say, is the highest place of
earth, that is in all the world. And it is so high that it
toucheth nigh to the circle of the moon, there as the moon maketh
her turn; for she is so high that the flood of Noah ne might not
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: But one day among the rocks he found a playfellow. It was not a
water-baby, alas! but it was a lobster; and a very distinguished
lobster he was; for he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a
great mark of distinction in lobsterdom, and no more to be bought
for money than a good conscience or the Victoria Cross.
Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was mightily taken with
this one; for he thought him the most curious, odd, ridiculous
creature he had ever seen; and there he was not far wrong; for all
the ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful
men, in the world, with all the old German bogy-painters into the
bargain, could never invent, if all their wits were boiled into
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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 Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: impossible that he can have followed any other route than
that of the Baraba."
"Who knows if he has left Omsk?" replied the deh-
baschi. "Perhaps he is still hidden in the town."
"That is to be wished, certainly. Colonel Ogareff would
have no fear then that the dispatches he bears should ever
reach their destination."
"They say that he is a native, a Siberian," resumed the
deh-baschi. "If so, he must be well acquainted with the
country, and it is possible that he has left the Irkutsk road,
depending on rejoining it later."
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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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: of the porter, the artisan, the small shopkeeper; to point out a
deleterious influence the corruption of which equals that of the
Parisian administrators who allow it so complacently to exist!
If the air of the houses in which the greater proportion of the middle
classes live is noxious, if the atmosphere of the streets belches out
cruel miasmas into stuffy back-kitchens where there is little air,
realize that, apart from this pestilence, the forty thousand houses of
this great city have their foundations in filth, which the powers that
be have not yet seriously attempted to enclose with mortar walls solid
enough to prevent even the most fetid mud from filtering through the
soil, poisoning the wells, and maintaining subterraneously to Lutetia
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
