| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare: Would long ere this have met us on the way.
Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not
To tell us whether they will come or no!
Enter LORD HASTINGS
BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time, here comes the sweating
Lord.
PRINCE. Welcome, my lord. What, will our mother come?
HASTINGS. On what occasion, God He knows, not I,
The Queen your mother and your brother York
Have taken sanctuary. The tender Prince
Would fain have come with me to meet your Grace,
Richard III |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: value; and this in spite of their number, which in the case of the
Silky Epeira exceeds two score. We know by what strange means the
Spider attains her ends and divides the area wherein the web is to
be warped into a large number of equal sectors, a number which is
almost invariable in the work of each species. An operation
without method, governed, one might imagine, by an irresponsible
whim, results in a beautiful rose-window worthy of our compasses.
We shall also notice that, in each sector, the various chords, the
elements of the spiral windings, are parallel to one another and
gradually draw closer together as they near the centre. With the
two radiating lines that frame them they form obtuse angles on one
The Life of the Spider |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: population and wealth, and in the intellectual advancement
and the liberalizing of opinion which go naturally with these.
And yet, if one may judge by the past, the river towns will manage to find
and use a chance, here and there, to cripple and retard their progress.
They kept themselves back in the days of steamboating supremacy,
by a system of wharfage-dues so stupidly graded as to prohibit
what may be called small RETAIL traffic in freights and passengers.
Boats were charged such heavy wharfage that they could not afford
to land for one or two passengers or a light lot of freight.
Instead of encouraging the bringing of trade to their doors, the towns
diligently and effectively discouraged it. They could have had many
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: only marked by the injustice and the hardships of which they are
the unhappy victims.
In several of the Western States the negro race never made
its appearance, and in all the Northern States it is rapidly
declining. Thus the great question of its future condition is
confined within a narrow circle, where it becomes less
formidable, though not more easy of solution.
The more we descend towards the South, the more difficult
does it become to abolish slavery with advantage: and this arises
from several physical causes which it is important to point out.
The first of these causes is the climate; it is well known
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