| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: and laughed. "I stand here at their mercy. Let them, if they will,
add mine to the blood that will presently rise up to choke them.
Let them assassinate me. It is a trade they understand. But until
they do so, they shall not prevent me from speaking to you, from
telling you what is to be looked for in them." And again he laughed,
not merely in exaltation as they supposed who watched him from below,
but also in amusement. And his amusement had two sources. One was
to discover how glibly he uttered the phrases proper to whip up
the emotions of a crowd: the other was in the remembrance of how
the crafty Cardinal de Retz, for the purpose of inflaming popular
sympathy on his behalf, had been in the habit of hiring fellows
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: scarcely feared the danger any longer.
The soldier, holding fast to the vessel's side, never took his eyes
off the strange visitor. He copied on his own rough and swarthy
features the imperturbability of the other's face, applying to this
task the whole strength of a will and intelligence but little
corrupted in the course of a life of mechanical and passive obedience.
So emulous was he of a calm and tranquil courage greater than his own,
that at last, perhaps unconsciously, something of that mysterious
nature passed into his own soul. His admiration became an instinctive
zeal for this man, a boundless love for and belief in him, such a love
as soldiers feel for their leader when he has the power of swaying
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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 Moby Dick by Herman Melville: preserve all his mighty swells and undulations. And, not to speak of
the highly presumable difference of contour between a young sucking
whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan; yet, even in the case of
one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a ship's deck, such is
then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying shape of him, that
his precise expression the devil himself could not catch.
But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded
whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at
all. For it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan,
that his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape.
Though Jeremy Bentham's skeleton, which hangs for candelabra in the
Moby Dick |
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 Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: having had my letter! Oh, great God!--Why did I not take the veil
rather than marry? But now my life is not my own! I have the child!"
and she sobbed.
Her weeping went to Madame Hulot's heart. She came out of her room and
ran to her daughter, taking her in her arms, and asking her those
questions, stupid with grief, which first rose to her lips.
"Now we have tears," said the Baron to himself, "and all was going so
well! What is to be done with women who cry?"
"My child," said the Baroness, "listen to your father! He loves us all
--come, come--"
"Come, Hortense, my dear little girl, cry no more, you make yourself
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