| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: the same mischiefs fell upon Laurentum, then everybody judged it was
divine vengeance that fell upon both cities, for the neglect of
executing justice upon the murder of Tatius and the ambassadors. But
the murderers on both sides being delivered up and punished, the
pestilence visibly abated; and Romulus purified the cities with
lustrations, which, they say, even now are performed at the wood called
Ferentina. But before the plague ceased, the Camertines invaded the
Romans and overran the country, thinking them, by reason of the
distemper, unable to resist; but Romulus at once made head against them,
and gained the victory, with the slaughter of six thousand men; then
took their city, and brought half of those he found there to Rome;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: past disasters with infinite satisfaction, when we should
consider that our enemies should entirely forget us, and that
we should live as new people in a new world, nobody having
anything to say to us, or we to them.
I pressed this home to him with so many arguments, and
answered all his own passionate objections so effectually that
he embraced me, and told me I treated him with such sincerity
and affection as overcame him; that he would take my advice,
and would strive to submit to his fate in hope of having the
comfort of my assistance, and of so faithful a counsellor and
such a companion in his misery. But still he put me in mind
Moll Flanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: barbarism succeeding the saturnalia of popular thought and the last
struggles of those civilizations which accumulated the treasures of
the world in one direction?
The commercial traveller! Is he not to the realm of ideas what our
stage-coaches are to men and things? He is their vehicle; he sets them
going, carries them along, rubs them up with one another. He takes
from the luminous centre a handful of light, and scatters it broadcast
among the drowsy populations of the duller regions. This human
pyrotechnic is a scholar without learning, a juggler hoaxed by
himself, an unbelieving priest of mysteries and dogmas, which he
expounds all the better for his want of faith. Curious being! He has
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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 Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: had done such a dread justice over at Salehurst, for the killing of
the Kentish knight (twenty-six men he hanged, as I heard), that
our folk were half mad with fear before we began. It is easier to
dig out a badger gone to earth than a Saxon gone dumb-sullen.
And atop of their misery the old rumour waked that Harold the
Saxon was alive and would bring them deliverance from us
Normans. This has happened every autumn since Santlache fight.'
'But King Harold was killed at Hastings,'said Una.
'So it was said, and so it was believed by us Normans, but our
Saxons always believed he would come again. That rumour did
not make our work any more easy.'
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