| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: aught else for him beyond contributing to defray the expenses of the
experiments that might be necessary; and for the rest, prevent his being
deprived of his leisure by the unseasonable interruptions of any one. But
besides that I neither have so high an opinion of myself as to be willing
to make promise of anything extraordinary, nor feed on imaginations so
vain as to fancy that the public must be much interested in my designs;
I do not, on the other hand, own a soul so mean as to be capable of
accepting from any one a favor of which it could be supposed that
I was unworthy.
These considerations taken together were the reason why, for the last
three years, I have been unwilling to publish the treatise I had on hand,
Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: Bordeaux merchants at this day. The lands of Bargeton, in Angoumois in
the barony of Rochefoucauld, being entailed, and the house in
Angouleme, called the Hotel Bargeton, likewise, the grandson of M. de
Bargeton the Waster came in for these hereditaments; though the year
1789 deprived him of all seignorial rights save to the rents paid by
his tenants, which amounted to some ten thousand francs per annum. If
his grandsire had but walked in the ways of his illustrious
progenitors, Bargeton I. and Bargeton II., Bargeton V. (who may be
dubbed Bargeton the Mute by way of distinction) should by rights have
been born to the title of Marquis of Bargeton; he would have been
connected with some great family or other, and in due time he would
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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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: deal lightly with certain forms of excess; keep the quality of
the recruit down to the low mental level, and see that the best
of all the agricultural science available is in the hands of the
elders, and there you have a first-class engine for pioneer work.
The tawdry mysticism and the borrowing from Freemasonry serve the
low caste Swede and Dane, the Welshman and the Cornish cotter,
just as well as a highly organized heaven.
Then I went about the streets and peeped into people's front
windows, and the decorations upon the tables were after the
manner of the year 1850. Main Street was full of country folk
from the desert, come in to trade with the Zion Mercantile
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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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: will regret that she has never known to the full the forbidden
felicity for which she is suffering. The world, which blames and
criticises with a superficial knowledge of the patent facts in which a
long inward struggle ends, is in reality a prime agent in bringing
such scandals about; and those whose voices are loudest in
condemnation of the alleged misconduct of some slandered woman never
give a thought to the immediate provocation of the overt step. That
step many a woman only takes after she has been unjustly accused and
condemned, and Mme. de Bargeton was now on the verge of this anomalous
position.
The obstacles at the outset of a passion of this kind are alarming to
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