| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: for a couple of thousand," he added in an aside to Blondet.
"In England, Finot, you grow extremely intimate with a woman in the
course of an evening, at a ball or wherever it is; next day you meet
her in the street and look as though you knew her again--'improper.'--
At dinner you discover a delightful man beneath your left-hand
neighbor's dresscoat; a clever man; no high mightiness, no constraint,
nothing of an Englishman about him. In accordance with the tradition
of French breeding, so urbane, so gracious as they are, you address
your neighbor--'improper.'--At a ball you walk up to a pretty woman to
ask her to dance--'improper.' You wax enthusiastic, you argue, laugh,
and give yourself out, you fling yourself heart and soul into the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: his foreign brigade, and with them the Ionians, Aeolians, and
Hellespontines, darted out from the Spartans' battle-lines to greet
their onset. One and all of the above played their part in the first
rush forward; in another instant they were[18] within spear-thrust of
the enemy, and had routed the section immediately before them. As to
the Argives, they actually declined to receive the attack of
Agesilaus, and betook themselves in flight to Helicon. At this moment
some of the foreign division were already in the act of crowning
Agesilaus with the wreath of victory, when some one brought him word
that the Thebans had cut through the Orchomenians and were in among
the baggage train. At this the Spartan general immediately turned his
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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 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: conditions themselves cry out:
"Hic Rhodus, hic salta !" [#2 Here is Rhodes, leap here! An allusion to
Aesop's Fables.]
Every observer of average intelligence; even if he failed to follow step
by step the course of French development, must have anticipated that an
unheard of fiasco was in store for the revolution. It was enough to
hear the self-satisfied yelpings of victory wherewith the Messieurs
Democrats mutually congratulated one another upon the pardons of May 2d,
1852. Indeed, May 2d had become a fixed idea in their heads; it had
become a dogma with them--something like the day on which Christ was to
reappear and the Millennium to begin had formed in the heads 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 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted. And
hence, as I think, it came about that Edward Hyde was so much
smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even as good
shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly
and plainly on the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must
still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body
an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon
that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance,
rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself. It seemed
natural and human. In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the
spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
