| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: hypothesis which, unlike the hypotheses of Physics, can never be verified.
It rests only on the general impressions of mankind, and there is little or
no hope of adding in any considerable degree to our stock of mental facts.
f. The parallelism of the Physical Sciences, which leads us to analyze the
mind on the analogy of the body, and so to reduce mental operations to the
level of bodily ones, or to confound one with the other.
g. That the progress of Physiology may throw a new light on Psychology is
a dream in which scientific men are always tempted to indulge. But however
certain we may be of the connexion between mind and body, the explanation
of the one by the other is a hidden place of nature which has hitherto been
investigated with little or no success.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: bell continued to swing, strike, and vibrate, with the same
doleful regularity as when a corpse is on its way to the tomb.
"My young friends here have their nerves a little shaken," said
the widow, with a smile, to the clergyman at the altar. "But so
many weddings have been ushered in with the merriest peal of the
bells, and yet turned out unhappily, that I shall hope for better
fortune under such different auspices."
"Madam," answered the rector, in great perplexity, "this strange
occurrence brings to my mind a marriage sermon of the famous
Bishop Taylor, wherein he mingles so many thoughts of mortality
and future woe, that, to speak somewhat after his own rich style,
Twice Told Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: and their real diamonds, their heeled slippers and their rouge,--all,
for the sweetness of country life.
I have gathered, my dear fellow, much precious information about the
old age of Mademoiselle Laguerre; for, to tell you the truth, the
after life of such women as Florine, Mariette, Suzanne de Val Noble,
and Tullia has made me, every now and then, extremely inquisitive, as
though I were a child inquiring what had become of the old moons.
In 1790 Mademoiselle Laguerre, alarmed at the turn of public affairs,
came to settle at Les Aigues, bought and given to her by Bouret, who
passed several summers with her at the chateau. Terrified at the fate
of Madame du Barry, she buried her diamonds. At that time she was only
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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 St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: wore knee-breeches and white stockings; his coat was 'some kind of
a lightish colour - or betwixt that and dark'; and he wore a 'mole-
skin weskit.' As if this were not enough, he presently haled me
from my breakfast in a prodigious flutter, and showed me an honest
and rather venerable citizen passing in the Square.
'That's HIM, sir,' he cried, 'the very moral of him! Well, this
one is better dressed, and p'r'aps a trifler taller; and in the
face he don't favour him noways at all, sir. No, not when I come
to look again, 'e don't seem to favour him noways.'
'Jackass!' said I, and I think the greatest stickler for manners
will admit the epithet to have been justified.
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