| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: unamiable. No man can pacify his conscience; if quiet be what he
want, he shall do better to let that organ perish from disuse. And
to avoid the penalties of the law, and the minor CAPITIS DIMINUTIO
of social ostracism, is an affair of wisdom - of cunning, if you
will - and not of virtue.
In his own life, then, a man is not to expect happiness, only to
profit by it gladly when it shall arise; he is on duty here; he
knows not how or why, and does not need to know; he knows not for
what hire, and must not ask. Somehow or other, though he does not
know what goodness is, he must try to be good; somehow or other,
though he cannot tell what will do it, he must try to give
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: of which do we now possess, being used for baking "pyes."
At the Great Fire of London in 1666, the number of books burnt was enormous.
Not only in private houses and Corporate and Church libraries were priceless
collections reduced to cinders, but an immense stock of books removed from
Paternoster Row by the Stationers for safety was burnt to ashes in the vaults
of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Coming nearer to our own day, how thankful we ought to be for
the preservation of the Cotton Library. Great was the consternation
in the literary world of 1731 when they heard of the fire at
Ashburnham House, Westminster, where, at that time, the Cotton MSS.
were deposited. By great exertions the fire was conquered, but not
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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 The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: went to their several billets. Every step, every sound, was a hope,--
and a lost hope. After that the stillness continued. Towards morning
the countess was obliged to return to her room. Brigitte, who watched
her movements, was uneasy when she did not reappear, and entering the
room she found her dead.
"She must have heard that recruit walking about Monsieur Auguste's
room, and singing their damned Marseillaise, as if he were in a
stable," cried Brigitte. "That was enough to kill her!"
The death of the countess had a far more solemn cause; it resulted, no
doubt, from an awful vision. At the exact hour when Madame de Dey died
at Carentan, her son was shot in the Morbihan. That tragic fact may be
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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 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: expedient must be tried."
As they were walking on the side of the mountain they observed
that the coneys, which the rain had driven from their burrows, had
taken shelter among the bushes, and formed holes behind them
tending upwards in an oblique line. "It has been the opinion of
antiquity," said Imlac, "that human reason borrowed many arts from
the instinct of animals; let us, therefore, not think ourselves
degraded by learning from the coney. We may escape by piercing the
mountain in the same direction. We will begin where the summit
hangs over the middle part, and labour upward till we shall issue
out beyond the prominence."
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