| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: his heart, and not the smallest political idea in his brain. Upon
these grounds the worthy people of the arrondissement made him captain
of the National Guard; but he was cashiered by Napoleon, who,
according to Birotteau, owed him a grudge for their encounter on the
13th Vendemiaire. Cesar thus obtained at a cheap rate a varnish of
persecution, which made him interesting in the eyes of the opposition,
and gave him a certain importance.
*****
Such was the history of this household, lastingly happy through its
feeling, and agitated only by commercial anxieties.
During the first year Cesar instructed his wife about the sales of
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: later I was very glad of it, as it gave me an undoubted
advantage over the Martians.
CHAPTER VIII
A FAIR CAPTIVE FROM THE SKY
The third day after the incubator ceremony we set forth
toward home, but scarcely had the head of the procession
debouched into the open ground before the city than orders
were given for an immediate and hasty return. As though
trained for years in this particular evolution, the green
Martians melted like mist into the spacious doorways of the
nearby buildings, until, in less than three minutes, the entire
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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 Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: seen to hold good; namely, that when movements, associated through habit
with certain states of the mind, are partially repressed by the will,
the strictly involuntary muscles, as well as those which are least
under the separate control of the will, are liable still to act;
and their action is often highly expressive. Conversely, when the will
is temporarily or permanently weakened, the voluntary muscles fail
before the involuntary. It is a fact familiar to pathologists,
as Sir C. Bell remarks,[20] "that when debility arises from affection
of the brain, the influence is greatest on those muscles which are,
in their natural condition, most under the command of the will."
We shall, also, in our future chapters, consider another proposition
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
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 Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: to our first good estate; after this, of the kingdom of heaven
awaiting such as are worthy thereof; of the torment in store for
the wicked; the fire that is not quenched, the never ending
darkness, the undying worm, and all the other tortures which the
slaves of sin have laid up in store for themselves. When he had
fully related these matters, he ended his speech with moral
instruction, and dwelt much upon purity of life, and utterly
condemned the vanity of things present, and proved the utter
misery of such as cleave thereto, and finally made an end with
prayer. And therewith he prayed for the prince, that he might
hold fast the profession of the Catholick Faith without turning
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