| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Her ignorance was rather appalling at first.
It was all unreal - the room with its cold steam pipes, the heavy window
hangings, the very words on the hot and cold taps in the bathroom. A
great vessel moved into the harbor. As it turned she saw its name
printed on its side in huge letters, and the flag, also painted, of a
neutral country - a hoped-for protection against German submarines. It
brought home to her, rather, the thing she had escaped.
After a time she thought of food, but rather hopelessly. Her attempts
to get savon from a stupid boy had produced nothing more useful than a
flow of unintelligible French and no soap whatever. She tried a
pantomime of washing her hands, but to the boy she had appeared to be
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: but then he was a person entirely lost to all sense of decency,
and had finally to be removed, preaching a farewell sermon
of a most vituperative description, and hurling invective at
the Man of Wrath, who sat up in his box drinking in every word
and enjoying himself thoroughly. The Man of Wrath likes novelty,
and such a sermon had never been heard before. <127> It is spoken
of in the village to this day with bated breath and awful joy.
December 22nd.--Up to now we have had a beautiful winter.
Clear skies, frost, little wind, and, except for a sharp touch
now and then, very few really cold days. My windows are gay with
hyacinths and lilies of the valley; and though, as I have said,
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: water springs it is buried sixteen feet. As the tide goes
down, the higher reaches of the rock are seen to be clothed by
CONFERVA RUPESTRIS as by a sward of grass; upon the more
exposed edges, where the currents are most swift and the
breach of the sea heaviest, Baderlock or Henware flourishes;
and the great Tangle grows at the depth of several fathoms
with luxuriance. Before man arrived, and introduced into the
silence of the sea the smoke and clangour of a blacksmith's
shop, it was a favourite resting-place of seals. The crab and
lobster haunt in the crevices; and limpets, mussels, and the
white buckie abound.
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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 Common Sense by Thomas Paine: yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the
English constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two
ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials.
FIRST - The remains of monarchial tyranny in the person of the king.
SECONDLY - The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers.
THIRDLY - The new republican materials in the persons of the commons,
on whose virtue depends the freedom of England.
The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people;
wherefore in a CONSTITUTIONAL SENSE they contribute nothing towards
the freedom of the state.
To say that the constitution of England is a UNION of three powers
Common Sense |
