| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: of the greatest blessings. In other words, it tends to make them sound
of soul and upright, being trained in the real world of actual
things[12] [and, as was said before, our ancestors could not but
perceive they owed their success in war to such instrumentality[13]];
and the chase alone deprives them of none of the other fair and noble
pursuits that they may choose to cultivate, as do those other evil
pleasures, which ought never to be learned. Of such stuff are good
soldiers and good generals made.[14] Naturally, those from whose souls
and bodies the sweat of toil has washed all base and wanton thoughts,
who have implanted in them a passion for manly virtue--these, I say,
are the true nobles.[15] Not theirs will it be to allow their city or
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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 Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: takes a sharp turn to the left, skirting the deer-park of Mote
Abbey, while the sixteenth bears to the left again, heading
straight for the club-house and the coast once more.
My lady was a pretty player. I gave her two strokes a hole and
led till the fourteenth, but on that green she holed a ten-foot
putt which made us all square.
If she hadn't sliced her drive from the fifteenth tee, it would
have been a beautiful shot. We watched it curl over the grey
wall into the sunshot park.
"Out of bounds, I suppose," said I. "What a pity, pretty
Princess."
The Brother of Daphne |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: it amount to? Nothing. Britain, being now an open enemy,
extinguishes every other name and title: And to say that
reconciliation is our duty, is truly farcical. The first
king of England, of the present line (William the Conqueror)
was a Frenchman, and half the Peers of England are descendants
from the same country; therefore, by the same method of reasoning,
England ought to be governed by France.
Much hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the colonies,
that in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world. But this
is mere presumption; the fate of war is uncertain, neither do
the expressions mean any thing; for this continent would never suffer
Common Sense |
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 Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: dressed in black, will project his lower lip and wrap it over the
upper, nodding his head as if to add: "Solid people, those; nothing to
be said against them." Ask no further; Practical men settle
everybody's status by figures, incomes, or solid acres,--a phrase of
their lexicon.
Turn to the right, and put the same question to that other man, who
belongs to the species Lounger. "Madame Firmiani?" he says; "yes, yes,
I know her well; I go to her parties; receives Wednesdays; highly
creditable house."--Madame Firmiani is metamorphosed into a house! but
the house is not a pile of stones architecturally superposed, of
course not, the word presents in Lounger's language an indescribable
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