| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: risks. What does it matter to the State how money is set circulating,
provided that it is always in circulation? What does it matter who is
rich or who is poor, provided that there is a constant quantity of
rich people to be taxed? Joint-stock companies, limited liability
companies, every sort of enterprise that pays a dividend, has been
carried on for twenty years in England, commercially the first country
in the world. Nothing passes unchallenged there; the Houses of
Parliament hatch some twelve hundred laws every session, yet no member
of Parliament has ever yet raised an objection to the system----"
"A cure for plethora of the strong box. Purely vegetable remedy," put
in Bixiou, "les carottes" (gambling speculation).
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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 Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: therefore, when the soldan will advance any worthy knight, he
maketh him an admiral. And when it is any dearth, the knights be
right poor, and then they sell both their horse and their harness.
And the soldan hath four wives, one Christian and three Saracens,
of the which one dwelleth at Jerusalem, and another at Damascus,
and another at Ascalon; and when them list, they remove to other
cities, and when the soldan will he may go to visit them. And he
hath as many paramours as him liketh. For he maketh to come before
him the fairest and the noblest of birth, and the gentlest damosels
of his country, and he maketh them to be kept and served full
honourably. And when he will have one to lie with him, he maketh
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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 De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: dynamic forces - Christ says that they are like the wind that
'bloweth where it listeth, and no man can tell whence it cometh and
whither it goeth.' That is why he is so fascinating to artists.
He has all the colour elements of life: mystery, strangeness,
pathos, suggestion, ecstasy, love. He appeals to the temper of
wonder, and creates that mood in which alone he can be understood.
And to me it is a joy to remember that if he is 'of imagination all
compact,' the world itself is of the same substance. I said in
DORIAN GRAY that the great sins of the world take place in the
brain: but it is in the brain that everything takes place. We
know now that we do not see with the eyes or hear with the ears.
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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 Travels and Researches in South Africa by Dr. David Livingstone: formerly [email protected]). To assure a high quality text,
the original was typed in (manually) twice and electronically compared.
[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALIZED.
Some obvious errors have been corrected.]
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.
Also called, Travels and Researches in South Africa;
or, Journeys and Researches in South Africa.
By David Livingstone [British (Scot) Missionary and Explorer--1813-1873.]
David Livingstone was born in Scotland, received his medical degree
from the University of Glasgow, and was sent to South Africa
by the London Missionary Society. Circumstances led him to try to meet
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