| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: formation almost identical, with favourable situations and the
same kind of peaty soil, yet can boast of few plants deserving
even the title of bushes; whilst in Tierra del Fuego it is
impossible to find an acre of land not covered by the densest
forest. In this case, both the direction of the heavy gales
of wind and of the currents of the sea are favourable to
the transport of seeds from Tierra del Fuego, as is shown
by the canoes and trunks of trees drifted from that country,
and frequently thrown on the shores of the Western Falkland.
Hence perhaps it is, that there are many plants in
common to the two countries but with respect to the trees
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: Alexandria. Dr. Layard, in his last book on Nineveh, gives some curious
instances of its prevalence among them at an earlier period, well worth
your careful study. But it was at Alexandria that the Jewish Cabbalism
formed itself into a system. It was there that the Jews learnt to
become the jugglers and magic-mongers of the whole Roman world, till
Claudius had to expel them from Rome, as pests to rational and moral
society.
And yet, among these hapless pedants there lingered nobler thoughts and
hopes. They could not read the glorious heirlooms of their race without
finding in them records of antique greatness and virtue, of old
deliverances worked for their forefathers; and what seemed promises,
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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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: little unlucky adventures, that happened in those times when I
was left by myself. Once a kite, hovering over the garden, made
a stoop at me, and if I had not resolutely drawn my hanger, and
run under a thick espalier, he would have certainly carried me
away in his talons. Another time, walking to the top of a fresh
mole-hill, I fell to my neck in the hole, through which that
animal had cast up the earth, and coined some lie, not worth
remembering, to excuse myself for spoiling my clothes. I
likewise broke my right shin against the shell of a snail, which
I happened to stumble over, as I was walking alone and thinking
on poor England.
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 The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: tableknife tied to end of it, still gripped in his hand. We had
been rapping for some time at the front door unable to make him
hear, and then we came round by the door in the side trellis into
the garden and so discovered him.
"Arthur!" I remember my mother crying with the strangest break in
her voice, "What are you doing there? Arthur! And--SUNDAY!"
I was coming behind her, musing remotely, when the quality of her
voice roused me. She stood as if she could not go near him. He had
always puzzled her so, he and his ways, and this seemed only another
enigma. Then the truth dawned on her, she shrieked as if afraid of
him, ran a dozen steps back towards the trellis door and stopped and
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