| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: induction.
Till we have this class of men fairly represented in the House of
Commons, there is little hope for Sanitary Reform: when it is so
represented, we shall have no reason to talk of Representative
institutions being on their trial.
And it is one of the few hopeful features of the present time,
that an attempt is at last being made to secure for educated men
of all professions a fair territorial representation. A memorial
to the Government has been presented, appended to which, in very
great numbers, are the names of men of note, of all ranks, all
shades in politics and religion, all professions--legal, clerical,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth
At daybreak know a pleasure not less real
Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood,
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good.
So when men bury us beneath the yew
Thy crimson-stained mouth a rose will be,
And thy soft eyes lush bluebells dimmed with dew,
And when the white narcissus wantonly
Kisses the wind its playmate some faint joy
Will thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and boy.
And thus without life's conscious torturing pain
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: years. Six months spent in the country will hardly heal the wounds of
the winter. We hear continually, in these days, of mysterious
ailments,--gastritis, and so forth,--ills unknown to women when they
busied themselves about their households. In the olden time women only
appeared in the world at intervals; now they are always on the scene.
Clementine found she had to struggle for her supremacy. She was cited,
and that alone brought jealousies; and the care and watchfulness
exacted by this contest with her rivals left little time even to love
her husband. Paz might well be forgotten. Nevertheless, in the month
of May, as she drove home from the Bois, just before she left Paris
for Ronquerolles, her uncle's estate in Burgundy, she noticed
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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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: not being able to do that, your ideal of life is to stand in the
thoroughfares of the world, like Ludgate apprentices, screaming to
every passer-by, "What d'ye lack?" You know nothing of your own
faculties or circumstances; you fancy that, among your damp, flat,
fat fields of clay, you can have as quick art-fancy as the Frenchman
among his bronzed vines, or the Italian under his volcanic cliffs;--
that Art may be learned, as book-keeping is, and when learned, will
give you more books to keep. You care for pictures, absolutely, no
more than you do for the bills pasted on your dead walls. There is
always room on the walls for the bills to be read,--never for the
pictures to be seen. You do not know what pictures you have (by
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