| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the
sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the
Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He
inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every
one answered by two names:
" 'Zambinella! Jomelli!'
"He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two
unconscionably stout /abbati/; but luckily he was quite near the
stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the
music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so
eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: [10] "Dr. Maudsley, `Body and Mind,' 1870, p. 8.
When we are conscious of the presence of an irritating particle
in our nostrils or windpipe--that is, when the same sensory
nerve-cells are excited, as in the case of sneezing and coughing--
we can voluntarily expel the particle by forcibly driving air
through these passages; but we cannot do this with nearly
the same force, rapidity, and precision, as by a reflex action.
In this latter case the sensory nerve-cells apparently excite
the motor nerve-cells without any waste of power by first
communicating with the cerebral hemispheres--the seat of our
consciousness and volition. In all cases there seems to exist
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: relation the creed of Omar and Amrou stands to the Alexandrian
speculations of five hundred years, and how it had power to sweep those
speculations utterly from the Eastern mind. It is a difficult problem;
to me, as a Christian priest, a very awful problem. What more awful
historic problem, than to see the lower creed destroying the higher? to
see God, as it were, undoing his own work, and repenting Him that He had
made man? Awful indeed: but I can honestly say, that it is one from
the investigation of which I have learnt--I cannot yet tell how much:
and of this I am sure, that without that old Alexandrian philosophy, I
should not have been able to do justice to Islam; without Islam I should
not have been able to find in that Alexandrian philosophy, an ever-
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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 My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: the liberty of asking him, in her sister's presence, the direct
question, which his timid wife had often desired, but never
ventured, to put to him:--
"Pray, Sir Philip, what route do you take when you reach the
Continent?"
"I go from Leith to Helvoet by a packet with advices."
"That I comprehend perfectly," said Lady Bothwell dryly; "but you
do not mean to remain long at Helvoet, I presume, and I should
like to know what is your next object."
"You ask me, my dear lady," answered Sir Philip, "a question
which I have not dared to ask myself. The answer depends on the
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