| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: addicted to spirituous liquors and idleness, had, in fact, been driven
to retire from business by those two failings. So far from reforming,
the incorrigible offender had found scope in his new occupation for
the indulgence of both cravings; he did nothing, and he drank with
drivers of wedding-coaches, with the undertaker's men at funerals,
with poor folk relieved by the vicar, till his morning's occupation
was set forth in rubric on his countenance by noon.
Mme. Cantinet saw no prospect but want in her old age, and yet she had
brought her husband twelve thousand francs, she said. The tale of her
woes related for the hundredth time suggested an idea to Dr. Poulain.
Once introduce her into the old bachelor's quarters, and it would 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 On Horsemanship by Xenophon: very apt to start and render the horse lame.
[12] i.e. "the metacarpals and metatarsals."
[13] Or, "and become varicose, with the result that the shanks swell
whilst the skin recedes from the bone."
[14] Or, "suspensory ligament"? Possibly Xenophon's anatomy is wrong,
and he mistook the back sinew for a bone like the fibula. The part
in question might intelligibly enough, if not technically, be
termed {perone}, being of the brooch-pin order.
If the young horse in walking bends his knees flexibly, you may safely
conjecture that when he comes to be ridden he will have flexible legs,
since the quality of suppleness invariably increases with age.[15]
On Horsemanship |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: conflicts with the chief article [which teaches] that only
Christ, and not the works of men, are to help [set free]
souls. Not to mention the fact that nothing has been
[divinely] commanded or enjoined upon us concerning the dead.
Therefore all this may be safely omitted, even if it were no
error and idolatry.
The Papists quote here Augustine and some of the Fathers who
are said to have written concerning purgatory, and they think
that we do not understand for what purpose and to what end
they spoke as they did. St. Augustine does not write that
there is a purgatory nor has he a testimony of Scripture to
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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 Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: it now they were almost sure to be seen presently by the messengers. On
their right a thickly grown coppice stretched from the road to the
stream that babbled in the hollow. He gave it as his advice that they
should lie hidden there until those who hunted them should have gone
by. Obviously that was the only plan, and his companions instantly
adopted it. They found a way through a gate into an adjacent field,
and from this they gained the shelter of the trees. Trenchard,
neglectful of his finery and oblivious of the ubiquitous brambles,
left his horse in Vallancey's care and crept to the edge of the thicket
that he might take a peep at the pursuers.
They came up very soon, six militiamen in lobster coats with yellow
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