| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: The boat that served to carry passengers from the Island of Cadzand to
Ostend was upon the point of departure; but before the skipper loosed
the chain that secured the shallop to the little jetty, where people
embarked, he blew a horn several times, to warn late lingerers, this
being his last journey that day. Night was falling. It was scarcely
possible to see the coast of Flanders by the dying fires of the
sunset, or to make out upon the hither shore any forms of belated
passengers hurrying along the wall of the dykes that surrounded the
open country, or among the tall reeds of the marshes. The boat was
full.
"What are you waiting for? Let us put off!" they cried.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: seem to know the swimmer who has learned to ride them so well.
And still the brown arms spin in an ever-nearing mist of spray;
and the outer sand-bar is not far off,--and there is shouting
Mateo, leaping in the surf, swinging something about his head, as
a vaquero swings his noose! ... Sough! splash!--it struggles in
the trough beside Feliu, and the sinewy hand descends upon it.
Tiene!--tira, Miguel! And their feet touch land again! ...
She is very cold, the child, and very still, with eyes closed.
--"Esta muerta, Feliu?" asks Mateo.
--"No!" the panting swimmer makes answer, emerging, while the
waves reach whitely up the sand as in pursuit,--"no; vive!
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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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: again. Wretches!
{16} I meant that the beautiful places of the world--Switzerland,
Italy, South Germany, and so on--are, indeed, the truest cathedrals-
-places to be reverent in, and to worship in; and that we only care
to drive through them: and to eat and drink at their most sacred
places.
{17} I was singularly struck, some years ago, by finding all the
river shore at Richmond, in Yorkshire, black in its earth, from the
mere drift of soot-laden air from places many miles away.
{18} One of the things which we must very resolutely enforce, for
the good of all classes, in our future arrangements, must be that
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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 Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: his own image, the indefatigable, undissuadable John
Knox. He sleeps within call of the church that so often
echoed to his preaching.
Hard by the reformer, a bandy-legged and garlanded
Charles Second, made of lead, bestrides a tun-bellied
charger. The King has his backed turned, and, as you
look, seems to be trotting clumsily away from such a
dangerous neighbour. Often, for hours together, these
two will be alone in the Close, for it lies out of the
way of all but legal traffic. On one side the south wall
of the church, on the other the arcades of the Parliament
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