The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Thoughts," whom he discovered by irrefragable processes of logic, and in
whom the philosophers believe privately, leaving Serapis to the women
and the sailors? All they had to do was to follow in his steps; to take
each of them a branch, of science or literature, or as many branches as
one man conveniently can; and working them out on the approved methods,
end in a few years, as Alexander did, by weeping on the utmost shore of
creation that there are no more worlds left to conquer.
Alas! the Muses are shy and wild; and though they will haunt, like
skylarks, on the bleakest northern moor as cheerfully as on the sunny
hills of Greece, and rise thence singing into the heaven of heavens, yet
they are hard to tempt into a gilded cage, however amusingly made and
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: jeweller's art designed by Monsieur de Sommervieux. It gives us
pleasure to make known this fact, which proves how powerless the
declamations of liberals have been on the mind of the Parisian
bourgeoisie. The upper ranks of that body have at all times been
royalist and they prove it when occasion offers."
"The price was five thousand francs," said the Abbe Gaudron; "but as
the payment was in cash, the court jeweller reduced the amount."
"Representing one of the oldest bourgeois families in Paris!" Saillard
was saying to himself; "there it is printed,--in the official paper,
too!"
"Dear Monsieur Gaudron," said Madame Baudoyer, "please help my father
|
The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: rock with the tender and went ashore, as some arrangements
were to be made for the future conduct of the works at
Arbroath, which were soon to be brought to a close; the
landing-master's crew having, in the meantime, shifted on
board of the PATRIOT. In leaving the rock, the writer kept
his eyes fixed upon the lighthouse, which had recently got
into the form of a house, having several tiers or stories of
windows. Nor was he unmindful of his habitation in the beacon
- now far overtopped by the masonry, - where he had spent
several weeks in a kind of active retirement, making practical
experiment of the fewness of the positive wants of man. His
|
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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: with it) 'and bid you swear thus:
'"May every evil to which the flesh of man is subject enter into my
flesh, may I live in misery and die in torment by the dreadful
death, may my soul be rejected from the Houses of the Sun, may it
wander homeless for ever in the darkness that is behind the Stars,
if I depart from this my oath. I, Teule, swear to be faithful to
the people of Anahuac and to their lawful governors. I swear to
wage war upon their foes and to compass their destruction, and more
especially upon the Teules till they are driven into the sea. I
swear to offer no affront to the gods of Anahuac. I swear myself
in marriage to Otomie, princess of the Otomie, the daughter of
Montezuma's Daughter |