| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: called the truth. It was natural that their methods should be
crude, for scientific inquiry had as yet supplied but scanty
materials for them to work with, and it was only after a very
long course of speculation and criticism that men could find out
what ways of going to work are likely to prove successful and
what are not. The earliest thinkers, indeed, were further
hindered from accomplishing much by the imperfections of the
language by the aid of which their thinking was done; for science
and philosophy have had to make a serviceable terminology by dint
of long and arduous trial and practice, and linguistic processes
fit for expressing general or abstract notions accurately grew up
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: rebellious woman, Mrs. Barron, would describe nearly as
exactly the conduct of the religious Mrs. Bowes. It is a
little bewildering, until we recollect the distinction
between faithful and unfaithful husbands; for Barron was "a
minister of Christ Jesus his evangel," while Richard Bowes,
besides being own brother to a despiser and taunter of God's
messengers, is shrewdly suspected to have been "a bigoted
adherent of the Roman Catholic faith," or, as Know himself
would have expressed it, "a rotten Papist."
(1) Mr. Laing's preface to the sixth volume of Knox's Works,
p. lxii.
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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 First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or
reject propositions originated by others not especially chosen
for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would
wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment
to the Constitution--which amendment, however, I have not seen--has
passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall
never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States,
including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction
of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular
amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be
implied Constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express
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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 A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: successful actress; Champmesle was due to Racine, like Mars to Monvel
and Andrieux. Florine could do nothing in return for Raoul, though she
would gladly have been useful and necessary to him. She reckoned on
the charms of habit to keep him by her; she was always ready to open
her salons and display the luxury of her dinners and suppers for his
friends, and to further his projects. She desired to be for him what
Madame de Pompadour was to Louis XV. All actresses envied Florine's
position, and some journalists envied that of Raoul.
Those to whom the inclination of the human mind towards chance,
opposition, and contrasts is known, will readily understand that after
ten years of this lawless Bohemian life, full of ups and downs, of
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