| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: it could not impair his usefulness. But I was not
allowed to proceed. Guides have no feeling for science,
and this one would not consent to be made uncomfortable
in its interest.
In the midst of my scientific work, one of those
needless accidents happened which are always occurring
among the ignorant and thoughtless. A porter shot
at a chamois and missed it and crippled the Latinist.
This was not a serious matter to me, for a Latinist's
duties are as well performed on crutches as otherwise--
but the fact remained that if the Latinist had not
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: merchant and the manufacturer, in this new world, will be a
sovereign commune; it is a sovereign power that will see its
crops undersold, and its manufactures worsted in the market.
And all the more dangerous that the sovereign power should be
small. Great powers are slow to stir; national affronts,
even with the aid of newspapers, filter slowly into popular
consciousness; national losses are so unequally shared, that
one part of the population will be counting its gains while
another sits by a cold hearth. But in the sovereign commune
all will be centralised and sensitive. When jealousy springs
up, when (let us say) the commune of Poole has overreached
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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 Europeans by Henry James: "Well," cried the young man, "I did n't come here to make any one unhappy!"
Gertrude looked round her awhile in the odorous darkness.
"I will do anything you please," she said.
"For instance?" asked Felix, smiling.
"I will go away. I will do anything you please."
Felix looked at her in solemn admiration. "Yes, we will go away," he said.
"But we will make peace first."
Gertrude looked about her again, and then she broke out, passionately, "Why do
they try to make one feel guilty? Why do they make it so difficult?
Why can't they understand?"
"I will make them understand!" said Felix. He drew her hand into his arm,
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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 La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: the delight with which my uncle Toby, encouraged by Trim, bestrode his
hobby-horse.
" 'Monsieur,' said Monsieur Regnault, 'I was head-clerk in Monsieur
Roguin's office, in Paris. A first-rate house, which you may have
heard mentioned? No! An unfortunate bankruptcy made it famous.--Not
having money enough to purchase a practice in Paris at the price to
which they were run up in 1816, I came here and bought my
predecessor's business. I had relations in Vendome; among others, a
wealthy aunt, who allowed me to marry her daughter.--Monsieur,' he
went on after a little pause, 'three months after being licensed by
the Keeper of the Seals, one evening, as I was going to bed--it was
La Grande Breteche |
