| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: most desirable position possible is that of a prince. And I
think it also follows that the so-called usurpations with which
history is littered are the most excusable misdemeanors which men
have committed. To usurp a usurpation--that is all it amounts
to, isn't it?
A prince is not to us what he is to a European, of course.
We have not been taught to regard him as a god, and so one good
look at him is likely to so nearly appease our curiosity as to
make him an object of no greater interest the next time. We want
a fresh one. But it is not so with the European. I am quite
sure of it. The same old one will answer; he never stales.
What is Man? |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: help. He was awakened by the sun, whose pitiless rays fell with all
their force on the granite and produced an intolerable heat--for he
had had the stupidity to place himself adversely to the shadow thrown
by the verdant majestic heads of the palm trees. He looked at the
solitary trees and shuddered--they reminded him of the graceful shafts
crowned with foliage which characterize the Saracen columns in the
cathedral of Arles.
But when, after counting the palm trees, he cast his eyes around him,
the most horrible despair was infused into his soul. Before him
stretched an ocean without limit. The dark sand of the desert spread
further than eye could reach in every direction, and glittered like
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: high reputations and great fortunes in a short space of time, the
choicest spirits of the nation enter the military profession: all
the enterprising, proud, and martial minds, no longer of the
aristocracy solely, but of the whole country, are drawn in this
direction. As the number of competitors for military honors is
immense, and war drives every man to his proper level, great
generals are always sure to spring up. A long war produces upon
a democratic army the same effects that a revolution produces
upon a people; it breaks through regulations, and allows
extraordinary men to rise above the common level. Those officers
whose bodies and minds have grown old in peace, are removed, or
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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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: many carriages, drawn by eight horses to each. I took nine of
these sticks, and fixing them firmly in the ground in a
quadrangular figure, two feet and a half square, I took four
other sticks, and tied them parallel at each corner, about two
feet from the ground; then I fastened my handkerchief to the nine
sticks that stood erect; and extended it on all sides, till it
was tight as the top of a drum; and the four parallel sticks,
rising about five inches higher than the handkerchief, served as
ledges on each side. When I had finished my work, I desired the
emperor to let a troop of his best horses twenty-four in number,
come and exercise upon this plain. His majesty approved of the
Gulliver's Travels |
