| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: woman?"
"Do you think, then, sir, that the mission of a man of honour is
to go about converting lost women? Do you think that God has
given such a grotesque aim to life, and that the heart should
have any room for enthusiasm of that kind? What will be the end
of this marvellous cure, and what will you think of what you are
saying to-day by the time you are forty? You will laugh at this
love of yours, if you can still laugh, and if it has not left too
serious a trace in your past. What would you be now if your
father had had your ideas and had given up his life to every
impulse of this kind, instead of rooting himself firmly in
Camille |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: he fled from it a wanderer and a beggar.
The rest of his life is a blank. He is said to have recommenced his
old wanderings about Europe, studying the diseases of every country,
and writing his books, which were none of them published till after
his death. His enemies joyfully trampled on the fallen man. He was
a "dull rustic, a monster, an atheist, a quack, a maker of gold, a
magician." When he was drunk, one Wetter, his servant, told Erastus
(one of his enemies) that he used to offer to call up legions of
devils to prove his skill, while Wetter, in abject terror of his
spells, entreated him to leave the fiends alone--that he had sent
his book by a fiend to the spirit of Galen in hell, and challenged
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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 The Message by Honore de Balzac: love. It was which of us should overtop the other in sentiment.
One of us had traveled six hundred miles to see his mistress for
an hour. The other, at the risk of being shot for a wolf, had
prowled about her park to meet her one night. Out came all our
follies in fact. If it is pleasant to remember past dangers, is
it not at least as pleasant to recall past delights? We live
through the joy a second time. We told each other everything, our
perils, our great joys, our little pleasures, and even the humors
of the situation. My friend's countess had lighted a cigar for
him; mine made chocolate for me, and wrote to me every day when
we did not meet; his lady had come to spend three days with him
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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 Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: both flanks, whilst in front were their enemies, and in the rear their
friends. When Castruccio saw that his men were unable to strike a
decisive blow at the enemy and put them to flight, he sent one
thousand infantrymen round by the castle, with orders to join the four
hundred horsemen he had previously dispatched there, and commanded the
whole force to fall upon the flank of the enemy. These orders they
carried out with such fury that the Florentines could not sustain the
attack, but gave way, and were soon in full retreat--conquered more by
their unfortunate position than by the valour of their enemy. Those in
the rear turned towards Pistoia, and spread through the plains, each
man seeking only his own safety. The defeat was complete and very
The Prince |
