| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: May hope to achieve it before life be done;
But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes,
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows
A harvest of barren regrets. And the worm
That crawls on in the dust to the definite term
Of its creeping existence, and sees nothing more
Than the path it pursues till its creeping be o'er,
In its limited vision, is happier far
Than the Half-Sage, whose course, fix'd by no friendly star
Is by each star distracted in turn, and who knows
Each will still be as distant wherever he goes.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: world from the prepossession which it holds against the other: -
that the advantage of travel, as it regarded the SCAVOIR VIVRE, was
by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual
toleration; and mutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow,
taught us mutual love.
The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour
and good sense, as coincided with my first favourable impressions
of his character: - I thought I loved the man; but I fear I mistook
the object; - 'twas my own way of thinking - the difference was, I
could not have expressed it half so well.
It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast, - if the
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