| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: from a side-road on to the main highway, when a dark mass right
on the opposite corner against the hedgerow attracted my
attention. The next second my head-lights showed what it was,
and I slowed down. A great limousine, if you please, standing at
an angle of twenty degrees, its near front wheel obviously well
up the bank, and the whole car sunk in a drift of snow some four
or five feet deep. All its lights were out, and fresh snow was
beginning to gather on the top against the luggage rail.
I stopped, took out one of my side oil lamps, and, getting out of
the car, advanced to the edge of the drift, holding the light
above my head. The limousine was evidently a derelict.
The Brother of Daphne |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,
And makes it bleed in vain!
Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
And no man spoke a word.
Silently we went round and round,
And through each hollow mind
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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 Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: in the annals from which I am plagiarizing, but one may suppose that
it was substantial, for reasons which will hereinafter appear.
Needless to say (except to make the story longer and extend the
reader's pleasure), Sir Philo made energetic protests, which
eventually descended to rather pathetic entreaties, all in a
futile attempt to change the king's mind. But King Cleon would
not be dissuaded, and so the news was soon heralded throughout the
kingdom, and, as you might suppose, arrow sales shot up immediately
and remarkably.
As when a child pounds the ground near an anthill, causing a good
many of the residents instantly to surface and run around in massed
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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 The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: we shall presently study. Then the imperfections of the
ancien regime stared all men in the face. They were
numerous; it is enough to mention a few.
Despite the apparent authority of the central power, the kingdom,
formed by the successive conquest of independent provinces, was
divided into territories each of which had its own laws and
customs, and each of which paid different imposts. Internal
customs-houses separated them. The unity of France was thus
somewhat artificial. It represented an aggregate of various
countries which the repeated efforts of the kings, including
Louis XIV., had not succeeded in wholly unifying. The most
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