| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: knowledge and insight to guide my efforts in this district, where
Mitouflet tells me you have the greatest influence. Monsieur, I am
sent into the provinces on an enterprise of the utmost importance,
undertaken by bankers who--"
"Who mean to win our tricks," said Vernier, long used to the ways of
commercial travellers and to their periodical visits.
"Precisely," replied Gaudissart, with native impudence. "But with your
fine tact, Monsieur, you must be aware that we can't win tricks from
people unless it is their interest to play at cards. I beg you not to
confound me with the vulgar herd of travellers who succeed by humbug
or importunity. I am no longer a commercial traveller. I was one, and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: bodies. A back-handed, loose blow of his fist could
have smashed their skulls like egg-shells. With a sweep
of his wicked feet (or hind-hands) he could have
disembowelled them. A twist could have broken their
necks, and I know that with a single crunch of his jaws
he could have pierced, at the same moment, the great
vein of the throat in front and the spinal marrow at
the back.
He could spring twenty feet horizontally from a sitting
position. He was abominably hairy. It was a matter of
pride with us to be not very hairy. But he was covered
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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 Symposium by Plato: And he is temperate as well as just, for he is the ruler of the desires,
and if he rules them he must be temperate. Also he is courageous, for he
is the conqueror of the lord of war. And he is wise too; for he is a poet,
and the author of poesy in others. He created the animals; he is the
inventor of the arts; all the gods are his subjects; he is the fairest and
best himself, and the cause of what is fairest and best in others; he makes
men to be of one mind at a banquet, filling them with affection and
emptying them of disaffection; the pilot, helper, defender, saviour of men,
in whose footsteps let every man follow, chanting a strain of love. Such
is the discourse, half playful, half serious, which I dedicate to the god.
The turn of Socrates comes next. He begins by remarking satirically that
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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 The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: face was visible. Completely routed, the commandant picked up the bits
of his broken sword, looked at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, whose ardent
beauty was beginning to find its way to his heart, and said: "As for
you, mademoiselle, I take nothing back, and to-morrow these fragments
of my sword will reach Bonaparte, unless--"
"Pooh! what do I care for Bonaparte, or your republic, or the king, or
the Gars?" she cried, scarcely repressing an explosion of ill-bred
temper.
A mysterious emotion, the passion of which gave to her face a dazzling
color, showed that the whole world was nothing to the girl the moment
that one individual was all in all to her. But she suddenly subdued
The Chouans |
