| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: reread.
"Finish your coffee, at any rate, mademoiselle; don't excite your
blood; just see how red you are."
"Am I red, Josette?" she said, going to a mirror, from which the
quicksilver was peeling, and which presented her features to her
upside down.
"Good heavens!" thought Mademoiselle Cormon, "suppose I should look
ugly! Come, Josette; come, my dear, dress me at once; I want to be
ready before Jacquelin has harnessed Penelope. If you can't pack my
things in time, I will leave them here rather than lose a single
minute."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: therefore at liberty to omit words and turns of expression which the
English language is quite capable of supplying. He must be patient and
self-controlled; he must not be easily run away with. Let him never allow
the attraction of a favourite expression, or a sonorous cadence, to
overpower his better judgment, or think much of an ornament which is out of
keeping with the general character of his work. He must ever be casting
his eyes upwards from the copy to the original, and down again from the
original to the copy (Rep.). His calling is not held in much honour by the
world of scholars; yet he himself may be excused for thinking it a kind of
glory to have lived so many years in the companionship of one of the
greatest of human intelligences, and in some degree, more perhaps than
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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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: There is not a moment's time to dress you, Sir, cried Susannah--the child
is as black in the face as my--As your what? said my father, for like all
orators, he was a dear searcher into comparisons.--Bless, me, Sir, said
Susannah, the child's in a fit.--And where's Mr. Yorick?--Never where he
should be, said Susannah, but his curate's in the dressing-room, with the
child upon his arm, waiting for the name--and my mistress bid me run as
fast as I could to know, as captain Shandy is the godfather, whether it
should not be called after him.
Were one sure, said my father to himself, scratching his eye-brow, that the
child was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother Toby as not--
and it would be a pity, in such a case, to throw away so great a name as
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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 Anabasis by Xenophon: Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a
pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans,
and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land
and property in Scillus, where he lived for many
years before having to move once more, to settle
in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.
The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia
to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and
take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a
leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and
Anabasis |
