| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: mine. In fact, I've sometimes wondered at your going out of your
way to be so civil to him when you must see plainly enough that I
don't like him."
Her answer to this was not immediate. She seemed to be choosing
her words with care, not so much for her own sake as for his, and
his exasperation was increased by the suspicion that she was
trying to spare him.
"He was your friend before he was mine. I never knew him till I
was married. It was you who brought him to the house and who
seemed to wish me to like him."
Glennard gave a short laugh. The defence was feebler than he had
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: clothing worn by its owner. There was an utter disregard for
everything not essentially useful, which was visible even in the
smallest trifles. Benassis took Genestas through the kitchen, that
being the shortest way to the dining-room.
Had the kitchen belonged to an inn, it could not have been more smoke-
begrimed; and if there was a sufficiency of cooking pots within its
precincts, this lavish supply was Jacquotte's doing--Jacquotte who had
formerly been the cure's housekeeper--Jacquotte who always said "we,"
and who ruled supreme over the doctor's household. If, for instance,
there was a brightly polished warming-pan above the mantelshelf, it
probably hung there because Jacquotte liked to sleep warm of a winter
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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 The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: own interests, that there obviously must be some occult cause at work
to which the petitioner begs to direct the eye of justice, inasmuch as
it is impossible but that this cause should be criminal, malignant,
and wrongful, or else of a nature to come under medical jurisdiction;
unless this influence is of the kind which constitutes an abuse of
moral power--such as can only be described by the word POSSESSION----'
The devil!" exclaimed Popinot. "What do you say to that, doctor. These
are strange statements."
"They might certainly," said Bianchon, "be an effect of magnetic
force."
"Then do you believe in Mesmer's nonsense, and his tub, and seeing
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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 Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: completed by a single master. Thus it is observable that the buildings
which a single architect has planned and executed, are generally more
elegant and commodious than those which several have attempted to improve,
by making old walls serve for purposes for which they were not originally
built. Thus also, those ancient cities which, from being at first only
villages, have become, in course of time, large towns, are usually but ill
laid out compared with the regularity constructed towns which a
professional architect has freely planned on an open plain; so that
although the several buildings of the former may often equal or surpass in
beauty those of the latter, yet when one observes their indiscriminate
juxtaposition, there a large one and here a small, and the consequent
Reason Discourse |
