| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: you would wish to see. I should have camped long before had I been
properly provided; but as this was to be so short a stage, I had
brought no wine, no bread for myself, and little over a pound for
my lady friend. Add to this, that I and Modestine were both
handsomely wetted by the showers. But now, if I could have found
some water, I should have camped at once in spite of all. Water,
however, being entirely absent, except in the form of rain, I
determined to return to Fouzilhic, and ask a guide a little farther
on my way - 'a little farther lend thy guiding hand.'
The thing was easy to decide, hard to accomplish. In this sensible
roaring blackness I was sure of nothing but the direction of 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 A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: Fronde, that obstinate Frondeurs though they were, they still existed
through the reign of Louis XIV. Mazarin favored them; there was the
Tuscan strain in them still, and he recognized it.
"Today, when Charles Edward de la Palferine's name is mentioned, not
three persons in a hundred know the history of his house. But the
Bourbons have actually left a Foix-Grailly to live by his easel.
"Ah, if you but knew how brilliantly Charles Edward accepts his
obscure position! how he scoffs at the bourgeois of 1830! What Attic
salt in his wit! He would be the king of Bohemia, if Bohemia would
endure a king. His /verve/ is inexhaustible. To him we owe a map of
the country and the names of the seven castles which Nodier could not
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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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: mystery of its tides, the omens of its hurricanes. While lying
at Brashear City he felt the storm had not yet reached its
highest, vaguely foresaw a mighty peril, and resolved to wait no
longer for a lull. "Boys," he said, "we've got to take her out
in spite of Hell!" And they "took her out." Through all the
peril, his men stayed by him and obeyed him. By midmorning the
wind had deepened to a roar,--lowering sometimes to a rumble,
sometimes bursting upon the ears like a measureless and deafening
crash. Then the captain knew the Star was running a race with
Death. "She'll win it," he muttered;--"she'll stand it ...
Perhaps they'll have need of me to-night."
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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 Symposium by Xenophon: [63] See Plut. "Thes." 30 foll. (Clough, i. p. 30 foll.); cf. Lucian,
xli. "Toxaris," 10.
Nay, take the fair deeds of to-day: and you shall find them wrought
rather for the sake of praise by volunteers in toil and peril, than by
men accustomed to choose pleasure in place of honour. And yet
Pausanias,[64] the lover of the poet Agathon,[65] making a defence in
behalf[66] of some who wallow in incontinence, has stated that an army
composed of lovers and beloved would be invincible.[67] These, in his
opinion, would, from awe of one another, have the greatest horror of
destruction. A truly marvellous argument, if he means that men
accustomed to turn deaf ears to censure and to behave to one another
The Symposium |
