| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: from the present to the dim past, a connecting clue which we can
follow backward in imagination. Now what spontaneous variation is
to the material organism, imagination, apparently, is to the mental
one. Just as spontaneous variation is constantly pushing the animal
or the plant to push out, as a vine its tendrils, in all directions,
while natural conditions are as constantly exercising over it a sort
of unconscious pruning power, so imagination is ever at work urging
man's mind out and on, while the sentiment of the community,
commonly called common sense, which simply means the point already
reached by the average, is as steadily tending to keep it at its own
level. The environment helps, in the one case as in the other,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: This distress of mind cast a hue of melancholy over the pleasure the
young Venetian felt in his mistress' presence. A woman's instinct has
amazing aptitude for harmony of feeling; it assumes the hue, it
vibrates to the note suggested by her lover. The pungent flavor of
coquettish spice is far indeed from spurring affection so much as this
gentle sympathy of tenderness. The smartness of a coquette too clearly
marks opposition; however transient it is displeasing; but this
intimate comprehension shows a perfect fusion of souls. The hapless
Emilio was touched by the unspoken divination which led the Duchess to
pity a fault unknown to her.
Massimilla, feeling that her strength lay in the absence of any
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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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: that delirious nature happened to think of.
A poor, unhappy gentlewoman, a substantial citizen's wife, was (if
the story be true) murdered by one of these creatures in Aldersgate
Street, or that way. He was going along the street, raving mad to be
sure, and singing; the people only said he was drunk, but he himself
said he had the plague upon him, which it seems was true; and
meeting this gentlewoman, he would kiss her. She was terribly
frighted, as he was only a rude fellow, and she ran from him, but the
street being very thin of people, there was nobody near enough to help
her. When she saw he would overtake her, she turned and gave him a
thrust so forcibly, he being but weak, and pushed him down
A Journal of the Plague Year |
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 A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: another newspaper, was less successful. Bain had arranged for
the publication of the articles in the Sunday Advertiser, but
when the time came to deliver his manuscript, Butler failed to
appear. Bain, whose duty it was to keep an eye on Butler, found
him in the street looking wild and haggard. He said that he had
found the work "too much for his head," that he had torn up what
he had written, that he had nowhere to go, and had been to the
end of the jetty with the intention of drowning himself. Bain
replied somewhat caustically that he thought it a pity he had not
done so, as nothing would have given him greater joy than going
to the end of the jetty and identifying his body. "You speak
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
