| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: "Impossible," he replied. "If we were not so separated by events (for
as to distance, you go farther than that which lies between us) you
would know, my dear child, that I have daughters, daughters-in-law,
and grand-children. All these dear creatures would be very uneasy if I
did not return to them to-night, and I have forty-five miles to go."
"Your horses are in good condition," said the Marquis de Simeuse.
"Oh! I am just from Troyes, where I had business yesterday."
After the customary polite inquiries for the Marquise de Chargeboeuf
and other matters really uninteresting but about which politeness
assumes that we are keenly interested, it dawned on Monsieur
d'Hauteserre that the old gentleman had come to warn his young
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: my opinion, the ideas are, as it were, patterns fixed in nature, and other
things are like them, and resemblances of them--what is meant by the
participation of other things in the ideas, is really assimilation to them.
But if, said he, the individual is like the idea, must not the idea also be
like the individual, in so far as the individual is a resemblance of the
idea? That which is like, cannot be conceived of as other than the like of
like.
Impossible.
And when two things are alike, must they not partake of the same idea?
They must.
And will not that of which the two partake, and which makes them alike, be
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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 Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: a carbine on his shoulder, appeared at the gate; so, beckoning
him towards me, I begged to know the cause of the uproar.
"Nothing, sir," said he, "but a dozen of the frail sisterhood,
that I and my comrades are conducting to Havre-de-Grace, whence
we are to ship them for America. There are one or two of them
pretty enough; and it is that, apparently, which attracts the
curiosity of these good people."
I should have passed on, satisfied with this explanation, if my
attention had not been arrested by the cries of an old woman, who
was coming out of the inn with her hands clasped, and exclaiming:
"A downright barbarity!--A scene to excite horror and
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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 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had
been doing, so I says:
"Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for
him."
"Why didn't you roust me out?"
"Well, I tried to, but I couldn't; I couldn't budge
you."
"Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all
day, but out with you and see if there's a fish on the
lines for breakfast. I'll be along in a minute."
He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
