| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: Lord Palmerston's with all the diplomats, and I went in the evening
with a small party of ladies. On coming home we drove round to see
the brilliant birthday illuminations. The first piece of
intelligence I heard at Lady Palmerston's was the death of the
Princess Sophia, an event which is a happy release for her, for she
was blind and a great sufferer. It has overturned all court
festivities, of course, for the present, and puts us all in deep
mourning, which is not very convenient just now, in the brilliant
season, and when we had all our dress arrangements made. The Queen
was to have a concert to-night, a drawing-room next Friday, and a
ball on the 16th, which are all deferred. . . . I forgot to say that
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: invented and had fallen into abeyance during the long peace. There
were all sorts of these things that people were routing out and
furbishing up; infernal things, silly things; things that had never
been tried; big engines, terrible explosives, great guns. You know
the silly way of these ingenious sort of men who make these things;
they turn 'em out as beavers build dams, and with no more sense of
the rivers they're going to divert and the lands they're going to
flood!
"As we went down the winding stepway to our hotel again, in
the twilight, I foresaw it all: I saw how clearly and inevitably
things were driving for war in Evesham's silly, violent hands, and
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: There was a woman who was taken in adultery. We are not told the
history of her love, but that love must have been very great; for
Jesus said that her sins were forgiven her, not because she
repented, but because her love was so intense and wonderful. Later
on, a short time before his death, as he sat at a feast, the woman
came in and poured costly perfumes on his hair. His friends tried
to interfere with her, and said that it was an extravagance, and
that the money that the perfume cost should have been expended on
charitable relief of people in want, or something of that kind.
Jesus did not accept that view. He pointed out that the material
needs of Man were great and very permanent, but that the spiritual
|
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 War in the Air by H. G. Wells: cars containing masked and goggled figures went tearing past him.
There were few police in evidence, but ever and again squads of
gaunt and tattered soldier-cyclists would come drifting along,
and such encounters became more frequent as he got out of Wales
into England. Amidst all this wreckage they were still
campaigning. He had had some idea of resorting to the workhouses
for the night if hunger pressed him too closely, but some of
these were closed and others converted into temporary hospitals,
and one he came up to at twilight near a village in
Gloucestershire stood with all its doors and windows open, silent
as the grave, and, as he found to his horror by stumbling along
|
