| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: justice and expediency. Many persons have done great wrong and profited by
their injustice; others have done rightly and come to no good.
SOCRATES: Well, but granting that the just and the expedient are ever so
much opposed, you surely do not imagine that you know what is expedient for
mankind, or why a thing is expedient?
ALCIBIADES: Why not, Socrates?--But I am not going to be asked again from
whom I learned, or when I made the discovery.
SOCRATES: What a way you have! When you make a mistake which might be
refuted by a previous argument, you insist on having a new and different
refutation; the old argument is a worn-our garment which you will no longer
put on, but some one must produce another which is clean and new. Now I
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie: Astley Priors. Tommy's ambition was somehow or other to gain
admission to the house itself. As they approached cautiously,
Tommy gave a sudden gasp.
On the second floor window some one standing between the window
and the light in the room threw a silhouette on the blind. It was
one Tommy would have recognized anywhere! Tuppence was in that
house!
He clutched Albert by the shoulder.
"Stay here! When I begin to sing, watch that window."
He retreated hastily to a position on the main drive, and began
in a deep roar, coupled with an unsteady gait, the following
Secret Adversary |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: blue sky opened, figures of angels appeared lifting the veil that hid
the sanctuary, and the light of heaven poured down.
There was a sudden silence.
The Count, surprised at the cessation of the music, looked at Gambara,
who, with fixed gaze, in the attitude of a visionary, murmured the
word: "God!"
Andrea waited till the composer had descended from the enchanted realm
to which he had soared on the many-hued wings of inspiration,
intending to show him the truth by the light he himself would bring
down with him.
"Well," said he, pouring him out another bumper of wine and clinking
Gambara |
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 The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: francs. He left the Rocher de Cancale at two o'clock in the morning,
slept like a child, awoke the next morning fresh and rosy, and dressed
to go to the Tuileries, with the intention of taking a ride, after
having seen Paquita, in order to get himself an appetite and dine the
better, and so kill the time.
At the hour mentioned Henri was on the boulevard, saw the carriage,
and gave the counter-word to a man who looked to him like the mulatto.
Hearing the word, the man opened the door and quickly let down the
step. Henri was so rapidly carried through Paris, and his thoughts
left him so little capacity to pay attention to the streets through
which he passed, that he did not know where the carriage stopped. The
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
