| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: hundred men, there should be no employment of them; I would make the
people, while looking on death as a grievous thing, yet not remove
elsewhere (to avoid it).
2. Though they had boats and carriages, they should have no occasion
to ride in them; though they had buff coats and sharp weapons, they
should have no occasion to don or use them.
3. I would make the people return to the use of knotted cords (instead
of the written characters).
4. They should think their (coarse) food sweet; their (plain) clothes
beautiful; their (poor) dwellings places of rest; and their common
(simple) ways sources of enjoyment.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: insinuation, scruple to declare, that I would not allow him to
squander the money left to me for far different purposes, but
offered him five hundred pounds, if he would sign a bond not to
torment me any more. My maternal anxiety made me thus appear to
waver from my first determination, and probably suggested to him,
or his diabolical agent, the infernal plot, which has succeeded
but too well.
"The bond was executed; still I was impatient to leave England.
Mischief hung in the air when we breathed the same; I wanted seas
to divide us, and waters to roll between, till he had forgotten
that I had the means of helping him through a new scheme. Disturbed
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