| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: mechanically to God."
At the moment when he raised his arm collecting all his strength, he
heard a voice as it were within him; he thought he saw a light. He
flung the instrument on his own bed and fled into the next room, and
stood before the window. There, he conceived the utmost horror of
himself. Feeling his virtue weak, fearing still to succumb to the
spell that was upon him he sprang out upon the road and walked along
the bank of the Rhine, pacing up and down like a sentinel before the
inn. Sometimes he went as far as Andernach in his hurried tramp; often
his feet led him up the slope he had descended on his way to the inn;
and sometimes he lost sight of the inn and the window he had left open
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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 United States Constitution: New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six,
Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive
Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers;
and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of
two Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof,
for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election,
they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of
The United States Constitution |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: us, was yet sincerely and consistently held. When he came in
his ripe years to compare the glory of two kingdoms, England
and France, it was on three points only, - pleasures, valour,
and riches, - that he cared to measure them; and in the very
outset of that tract he speaks of the life of the great as
passed, "whether in arms, as in assaults, battles, and
sieges, or in jousts and tournaments, in high and stately
festivities and in funeral solemnities." (8)
(1) D'Hericault's admirable MEMOIR, prefixed to his edition
of Charles's works, vol. i. p. xi.
(2) Vallet de Viriville, CHARLES VII. ET SON EPOQUE, ii. 428,
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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 Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: Many who have suffered death at the hands of the
authorities on account of acts of violence were no
doubt genuine sufferers for their belief in a cause,
but others, equally honored, are more questionable.
One of the most curious examples of this outlet for
the repressed religious impulse is the cult of Ravachol,
who was guillotined in 1892 on account of
various dynamite outrages. His past was dubious,
but he died defiantly; his last words were three lines
from a well-known Anarchist song, the ``Chant du
Pere Duchesne'':--
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