| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: these rather as a loss than as wealth.
Soc. It follows apparently that if a man purchases a horse and does
not know how to handle him, but each time he mounts he is thrown and
sustains injuries, the horse is not part of his wealth?
Crit. Not, if wealth implies weal, certainly.
Soc. And by the same token land itself is no wealth to a man who so
works it that his tillage only brings him loss?
Crit. True; mother earth herself is not a source of wealth to us if,
instead of helping us to live, she helps us to starve.
Soc. And by a parity of reasoning, sheep and cattle may fail of being
wealth if, through want of knowledge how to treat them, their owner
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: beauty, decked with laces and satin, her hair coquettishly falling in
a myriad of curls about her throat, resembled that of a flower encased
in its foliage. Madame Evangelista, robed in a gown of cherry velvet,
a color judiciously chosen to heighten the brilliancy of her skin and
her black hair and eyes, glowed with the beauty of a woman at forty,
and wore her pearl necklace, clasped with the "Discreto," a visible
contradiction to the late calumnies.
To fully explain this scene, it is necessary to say that Paul and
Natalie sat together on a sofa beside the fireplace and paid no
attention to the reading of the documents. Equally childish and
equally happy, regarding life as a cloudless sky, rich, young, and
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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 Mayflower Compact: file
containing them all, in order to improve the content ratios of
Etext
to header material.
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#STARTMARK#
The Mayflower Compact
November 11, 1620 [This was November 21, old style calendar]
In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten,
the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereigne Lord, King James,
by the Grace of God, of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland,
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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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: superior to Norwich.
It is placed on a peninsula between the River Yare and the sea; the
two last lying parallel to one another, and the town in the middle.
The river lies on the west side of the town, and being grown very
large and deep, by a conflux of all the rivers on this side the
county, forms the haven; and the town facing to the west also, and
open to the river, makes the finest quay in England, if not in
Europe, not inferior even to that of Marseilles itself.
The ships ride here so close, and, as it were, keeping up one
another, with their headfasts on shore, that for half a mile
together they go across the stream with their bowsprits over the
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