| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: desired sight of the sources of the Nile.
But this discovery was reserved for the invincible bravery of our
noble countrymen, who, not discouraged by the dangers of a
navigation in seas never explored before, have subdued kingdoms and
empires where the Greek and Roman greatness, where the names of
Caesar and Alexander, were never heard of; who have demolished the
airy fabrics of renowned hypotheses, and detected those fables which
the ancients rather chose to invent of the sources of the Nile than
to confess their ignorance. I cannot help suspending my narration
to reflect a little on the ridiculous speculations of those swelling
philosophers, whose arrogance would prescribe laws to nature, and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare: You see this Merchant, master Banister,
Is going now to prison at your suit.
His substance all is gone; what would you have?
Yet in regard I knew the man of wealth--
Never dishonest dealing, but such mishaps
Hath fallen on him, may light on me or you--
There is two hundred pound between us;
We will divide the same: I'll give you one,
On that condition you will set him free:
His state is nothing, that you see your self,
And where naught is, the King must lose his right.
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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 Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: Pleasure, what of Want? That to be clothed in sackcloth is better
than any purple robe; that sleeping on the bare ground is the
softest couch; and in proof of each assertion he points to his
own courage, constancy, and freedom; to his own healthy and
muscular frame. "There is no enemy near," he cries, "all is
perfect peace!"
CLXXXVIII
If a man has this peace--not the peace proclaimed by Caesar
(how indeed should he have it to proclaim?), nay, but the peace
proclaimed by God through reason, will not that suffice him when
alone, when he beholds and reflects:--Now can no evil happen unto
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
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 Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: German; and hence we have a band which is able to play, and a company
of actors able, as you will be told, to act. This last you will take
on trust, for the players, unlike the local sheet, confine themselves
to German and though at the beginning of winter they come with their
wig-boxes to each hotel in turn, long before Christmas they will have
given up the English for a bad job. There will follow, perhaps, a
skirmish between the two races; the German element seeking, in the
interest of their actors, to raise a mysterious item, the KUR-TAXE,
which figures heavily enough already in the weekly bills, the English
element stoutly resisting. Meantime in the English hotels home-
played farces, TABLEAUX-VIVANTS, and even balls enliven the evenings;
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