| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: second javelin to the right hand. And here we will state shortly the
most effective method of hurling the javelin. The horseman should
throw forward his left side, while drawing back his right; then rising
bodily from the thighs, he should let fly the missile with the point
slightly upwards. The dart so discharged will carry with the greatest
force and to the farthest distance; we may add, too, with the truest
aim, if at the moment of discharge the lance be directed steadily on
the object aimed at.[13]
[12] Al. "to turn right-about."
[13] "If the lance is steadily eyeing the mark at the instant of
discharge."
On Horsemanship |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: the greater number of those whose beauty is cited as perfect came to
some tragic end of love.
This apparent singularity must have a cause. It may be that man lives
more by sentiment than by sense; perhaps the physical charm of beauty
is limited, while the moral charm of a woman without beauty is
infinite. Is not this the moral of the fable on which the Arabian
Nights are based? An ugly wife of Henry VIII. might have defied the
axe, and subdued to herself the inconstancy of her master.
By a strange chance, not inexplicable, however, in a girl of Spanish
origin, Madame Claes was uneducated. She knew how to read and write,
but up to the age of twenty, at which time her parents withdrew her
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: a very old dream,--almost worn out, I think.
From the back-window I can see a narrow brick-yard sloping down
to the river-side, strewed with rain-butts and tubs. The river,
dull and tawny-colored, (la belle riviere!) drags itself
sluggishly along, tired of the heavy weight of boats and coal-
barges. What wonder? When I was a child, I used to fancy a
look of weary, dumb appeal upon the face of the negro-like river
slavishly bearing its burden day after day. Something of the
same idle notion comes to me to-day, when from the street-window
I look on the slow stream of human life creeping past, night and
morning, to the great mills. Masses of men, with dull, besotted
Life in the Iron-Mills |
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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: healthy, which could only be accounted for from this habit, and
which ceased when the habit stopped. Let me again entreat your
attention to this undoubted fact.
Take another instance, which is only too common: If you are in a
crowded room, with plenty of fire and lights and company, doors
and windows all shut tight, how often you feel faint--so faint
that you may require smelling-salts or some other stimulant. The
cause of your faintness is just the same as that of the mouse's
fainting in the box; you and your friends, and, as I shall show
you presently, the fire and the candles likewise, having been all
breathing each other's breaths, over and over again, till the air
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