| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: to-morrow in the morning, and we can talk it out over a segar. But
here, you know, it really won't do at all.'
Before he could collect his mind for an answer, I had given him my
address in St. James Square, and had again mingled with the crowd.
Alas! I was not fated to get back to Flora so easily! Mr. Robbie
was in the path: he was insatiably loquacious; and as he continued
to palaver I watched the insipid youths gather again about my idol,
and cursed my fate and my host. He remembered suddenly that I was
to attend the Assembly Ball on Thursday, and had only attended to-
night by way of a preparative. This put it into his head to
present me to another young lady; but I managed this interview with
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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 Memorabilia by Xenophon: impossible to preserve the humour of the Socratic argument. See
Newman, op. cit. i. 107.
Euth. I do.
Soc. Is it a term suggestive of the wisdom or the ignorance of those
to whom it is applied?
Euth. Clearly of their ignorance.
Soc. Ignorance, for instance, of smithying?
Euth. No, certainly not.
Soc. Then possibly ignorance of carpentering?
Euth. No, nor yet ignorance of carpentering.
Soc. Well, ignorance of shoemaking?
The Memorabilia |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: slow and perplexed in their conceptions upon all other subjects,
except those of mathematics and music. They are very bad
reasoners, and vehemently given to opposition, unless when they
happen to be of the right opinion, which is seldom their case.
Imagination, fancy, and invention, they are wholly strangers to,
nor have any words in their language, by which those ideas can be
expressed; the whole compass of their thoughts and mind being
shut up within the two forementioned sciences.
Most of them, and especially those who deal in the astronomical
part, have great faith in judicial astrology, although they are
ashamed to own it publicly. But what I chiefly admired, and
Gulliver's Travels |
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 Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: chime of bells from St. George's Chapel, above, all combined to give
gayety and interest to the scene. The next morning (Sunday), after
an agreeable breakfast in the long, low-walled breakfast-room, which
opens upon the flower garden, we went to Windsor to worship in St.
George's Chapel. The Queen's stall is rather larger than the
others, and one is left vacant for the Prince of Wales.
LONDON, July 29th
And now with a new sheet I must begin my account of Nuneham. . . .
The Archbishop of York is the second son of Lord Vernon, but his
uncle, Earl Harcourt, dying without children, left him all his
estate, upon which he took the name of Harcourt. We arrived about
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