| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: are bound, by the doctrine it contains, to applaud the fact. Kings are not
taken away by miracles, neither are changes in governments brought about
by any other means than such as are common and human; and such as we are
now using. Even the dispersion of the Jews, though foretold by our Saviour,
was effected by arms. Wherefore, as ye refuse to be the means on one side,
ye ought not to be meddlers on the other; but to wait the issue in silence;
and unless ye can produce divine authority, to prove, that the Almighty
who hath created and placed this new world, at the greatest distance
it could possibly stand, east and west, from every part of the old,
doth, nevertheless, disapprove of its being independent of the corrupt
and abandoned court of Britain, unless I say, ye can shew this,
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: is still further corroborated by the account, given in both the
first and the third gospels, of the young man who came to seek
everlasting life. Jesus here maintains that righteousness is
insufficient unless voluntary poverty be superadded. Though the
young man has strictly fulfilled the greatest of the
commandments,--to love his neighbour as himself,--he is required,
as a needful proof of his sincerity, to distribute all his vast
possessions among the poor. And when he naturally manifests a
reluctance to perform so superfluous a sacrifice, Jesus observes
that it will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to share in the glories of the
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: intended that his Lydie should marry respectably. So for the last
three years he had been especially anxious to find a corner, either at
the Prefecture of Police, or in the general Police Office--some
ostensible and recognized post. He had ended by inventing a place, of
which the necessity, as he told Corentin, would sooner or later be
felt. He was anxious to create an inquiry office at the Prefecture of
Police, to be intermediate between the Paris police in the strictest
sense, the criminal police, and the superior general police, so as to
enable the supreme board to profit by the various scattered forces. No
one but Peyrade, at his age, and after fifty-five years of
confidential work, could be the connecting link between the three
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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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: to be foreman, making his choice on the future bishop's recommendation
of the man as an honest and intelligent workman. In these ways the
worthy printer thought to tide over the time until his son could take
a business which was sure to extend in young and clever hands.
David Sechard's school career was a brilliant one. Old Sechard, as a
"bear" who had succeeded in life without any education, entertained a
very considerable contempt for attainments in book learning; and when
he sent his son to Paris to study the higher branches of typography,
he recommended the lad so earnestly to save a good round sum in the
"working man's paradise" (as he was pleased to call the city), and so
distinctly gave the boy to understand that he was not to draw upon the
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