| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: I think her beauty hath bewitched my force
Or else with in me altered nature's course.
Aye, woman, wilt thou live in woods with me?
AMADINE.
Fain would I live, yet loath to live in woods.
BREMO.
Thou shalt not choose, it shall be as I say, &
therefore, follow me.
[Exit.]
ACT III. SCENE IV. The same.
[Enter Mucedorus solus.]
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: be moved without the others being affected also. He is to
distinguish between cause and occasion, between the influence of
general laws and particular fancies, and he is to remember that the
greatest lessons of the world are contained in history and that it
is the historian's duty to manifest them so as to save nations from
following those unwise policies which always lead to dishonour and
ruin, and to teach individuals to apprehend by the intellectual
culture of history those truths which else they would have to learn
in the bitter school of experience,
Now, as regards his theory of the necessity of the historian's
being contemporary with the events he describes, so far as the
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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 Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: thought upon the future of those who pray and believe. On the morrow
of his debauch, when he entered into the sober possession of his
power, this idea made him feel himself a prisoner; he knew the burden
of the woe that poets, and prophets, and great oracles of faith have
set forth for us in such mighty words; he felt the point of the
Flaming Sword plunged into his side, and hurried in search of Melmoth.
What had become of his predecessor?
The Englishman was living in a mansion in the Rue Ferou, near Saint-
Sulpice--a gloomy, dark, damp, and cold abode. The Rue Ferou itself is
one of the most dismal streets in Paris; it has a north aspect like
all the streets that lie at right angles to the left bank of the
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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 Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: being deeply interested in the fate of his patient. He gave me a
very melancholy account of my poor friend, drawing me for that
purpose a little apart from the lady. "The light of life," he
said, "was trembling in the socket; he scarcely expected it would
ever leap up even into a momentary flash, but more was
impossible." He then stepped towards his patient, and put some
questions, to which the poor invalid, though he seemed to
recognize the friendly and familiar voice, answered only in a
faltering and uncertain manner.
The young lady, in her turn, had drawn back when the doctor
approached his patient. "You see how it is with him," said the
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