| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: tenderly, and those that are against it, audaciously.
Also, as Machiavel noteth well, when princes,
that ought to be common parents, make them-
selves as a party, and lean to a side, it is as a boat,
that is overthrown by uneven weight on the one
side; as was well seen, in the time of Henry the
Third of France; for first, himself entered league
for the extirpation of the Protestants; and pres-
ently after, the same league was turned upon him-
self. For when the authority of princes, is made
but an accessory to a cause, and that there be other
Essays of Francis Bacon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: in his own village like a bear,' he went on, ' - very well, he sees
nothing. And then death is the end of all. And he has seen
nothing.'
Madame reminded her husband of an Englishman who had come up this
canal in a steamer.
'Perhaps Mr. Moens in the YTENE,' I suggested.
'That's it,' assented the husband. 'He had his wife and family
with him, and servants. He came ashore at all the locks and asked
the name of the villages, whether from boatmen or lock-keepers; and
then he wrote, wrote them down. Oh, he wrote enormously! I
suppose it was a wager.'
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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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: voice of the crowd which followed him with insults and swelled at
every step. During the passage from the inn to the prison, the noise
made by the tramping of the crowd and the soldiers, the murmur of the
various colloquies, the sight of the sky, the coolness of the air, the
aspect of Andernach and the shimmering of the waters of the Rhine,--
these impressions came to the soul of the young man vaguely,
confusedly, torpidly, like all the sensations he had felt since his
waking. There were moments, he said, when he thought he was no longer
living.
I was then in prison. Enthusiastic, as we all are at twenty years of
age, I wished to defend my country, and I commanded a company of free
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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 Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: the cause of my beloved Spain wrecked in Andalusia, than I wrote to
the steward of my Sardinian estate to make arrangements for my escape.
Some hardy coral fishers were despatched to wait for me at a point on
the coast; and when Ferdinand urged the French to secure my person, I
was already in my barony of Macumer, amidst brigands who defy all law
and all avengers.
The last Hispano-Moorish family of Granada has found once more the
shelter of an African desert, and even a Saracen horse, in an estate
which comes to it from Saracens. How the eyes of these brigands--who
but yesterday had dreaded my authority--sparkled with savage joy and
pride when they found they were protecting against the King of Spain's
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