| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: battalions, according to their power of enduring the fatigues of a
long march.
The young man of whom we are now speaking, was much in advance of a
column of recruits, known to be on its way from Cherbourg, which the
mayor of Carentan was awaiting hourly, in order to give them their
billets for the night. The young man walked with a jades step, but
firmly, and his gait seemed to show that he had long been familiar
with military hardships. Though the moon was shining on the meadows
about Carentan, he had noticed heavy clouds on the horizon, and the
fear of being overtaken by a tempest may have hurried his steps, which
were certainly more brisk than his evident lassitude could have
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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 Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: A phantom fury of the past,
Since Persia fell at Marathon;
And as of old, when Helicon
Trembled and swayed with rapture vast
(Long centuries have come and gone),
This ancient plain, when night comes on,
Shakes to a ghostly battle-blast,
Since Persia fell at Marathon.
But into soundless Acheron
The glory of Greek shame was cast:
Long centuries have come and gone,
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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 Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: for was she not a daughter of warriors, conquered in battle, and
did she not belong rightfully to the victorious Rajah? Even the
evident kindness of the terrible old man must spring, she
thought, from admiration for his captive, and the flattered
vanity eased for her the pangs of sorrow after such an awful
calamity. Perhaps had she known of the high walls, the quiet
gardens, and the silent nuns of the Samarang convent, where her
destiny was leading her, she would have sought death in her dread
and hate of such a restraint. But in imagination she pictured to
herself the usual life of a Malay girl--the usual succession of
heavy work and fierce love, of intrigues, gold ornaments, of
Almayer's Folly |
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 Memorabilia by Xenophon: So far so good (remarked Socrates); but if a general, seeing his
troops demoralised, were to invent a tale to the effect that
reinforcements were coming, and by means of this false statement
should revive the courage of his men, to which of the two accounts
shall we place that act of fraud?[30]
[30] Cf. "Hell." IV. iii. 10; "Cyrop." I. vi. 31.
On the side of right, to my notion (he replied).
Soc. Or again, if a man chanced to have a son ill and in need of
medicine, which the child refused to take, and supposing the father by
an act of deceit to administer it under the guise of something nice to
eat, and by service of that lie to restore the boy to health, to which
The Memorabilia |
