| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: care, in a nest or a litter, mates to breed, and is associated for
much of its life. Even the great carnivores do not go alone except
when they are old and have done with the most of life. Every pack,
every herd, begins at some point in a couple, it is the equivalent
of the tiger's litter if that were to remain undispersed. And it is
within the memory of men still living that in many districts the
African lion has with a change of game and conditions lapsed from a
"solitary" to a gregarious, that is to say a prolonged family habit
of life.
Man too, if in his ape-like phase he resembled the other higher
apes, is an animal becoming more gregarious and not less. He has
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: deer-stealer, a sober white-headed Tim Linkinwater like him, your
very best man of business, given to the reading of Scotch political
economy, and gifted with peculiarly clear notions on the currency
question?
It is puzzling, truly. I shall be very glad if these pages help
you somewhat toward solving the puzzle.
We shall agree at least that the study of Natural History has
become now-a-days an honourable one. A Cromarty stonemason was
till lately - God rest his noble soul! - the most important man in
the City of Edinburgh, by dint of a work on fossil fishes; and the
successful investigator of the minutest animals takes place
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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 The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: the horse; and he had the cheek to go and sell it not thirty miles
from Limoges! After that affair he hid himself for three months and
was never seen. The authorities offered a hundred golden louis to
whoever would deliver him up."
"Another time," added Colorat, "when the prefect of Tulle offered a
hundred louis for him, he made one of his own cousins, Giriex of
Vizay, earn them. His cousin denounced him, and appeared to deliver
him up. Oh, yes, he delivered him sure enough! The gendarmes were
delighted, and took him to Tulle; there they put him in the prison of
Lubersac, from which he escaped that very night, profiting by a hole
already begun by one of his accomplices who had been executed. All
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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 Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: "Covetous though we were, we could not possibly take more than two
thousand livres weight of gold, which meant six journeys across the
prison to the gondola. The sentinel at the water gate was bribed with
a bag containing ten livres weight of gold; and as far as the two
gondoliers, they believed they were serving the Republic. At daybreak
we set out.
"Once upon the open sea, when I thought of that night, when I
recollected all that I had felt, when the vision of that great hoard
rose before my eyes, and I computed that I had left behind thirty
millions in silver, twenty in gold, and many more in diamonds, pearls,
and rubies--then a sort of madness began to work in me. I had the gold
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