| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: the Emperor Napoleon,--who had his own good reasons for creating a
myriad of offices? I don't see how those nations have the audacity to
live at all. There's Austria, which has less than a hundred clerks in
her war ministry, while the salaries and pensions of ours amount to a
third of our whole budget, a thing that was unheard of before the
Revolution. I sum up all I've been saying in one single remark,
namely, that the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres, which
seems to have very little to do, had better offer a prize for the
ablest answer to the following question: Which is the best organized
State; the one that does many things with few officials, or the one
that does next to nothing with an army of them?"
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: long gone away and lost, and was come home again.
Yes, it was pretty to see, and made me think more of
them than I had done before.
I sent Merlin home on a shutter. He had caved in
and gone down like a landslide when I pronounced that
fearful name, and had never come to since. He never
had heard that name before, -- neither had I -- but to
him it was the right one. Any jumble would have
been the right one. He admitted, afterward, that
that spirit's own mother could not have pronounced
that name better than I did. He never could under-
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: The way, however, was clearly traceable. Now it would
lie straight between the dense thicket of marsh-plants; again
it would follow the winding shores of vast pools, some of
which, several versts in length and breadth, deserve the
name of lakes. In other localities the stagnant waters
through which the road lay had been avoided, not by bridges,
but by tottering platforms ballasted with thick layers of
clay, whose joists shook like a too weak plank thrown across
an abyss. Some of these platforms extended over three
hundred feet, and travelers by tarantass, when crossing
them have experienced a nausea like sea-sickness.
|
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 Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: when he sent for the Duc de Guise, while he himself remained hidden in
the new cabinet during the murder, only emerging in time to see the
overbearing subject for whom there were no longer prisons, tribunals,
judges, nor even laws, draw his last breath. Were it not for these
terrible circumstances the historian of to-day could hardly trace the
former occupation of these cabinets, now filled with soldiers. A
quartermaster writes to his mistress on the very spot where the
pensive Catherine once decided on her course between the parties.
"Come with me, my friend," said the queen-mother, "and I will see that
you are paid. Commerce must live, and money is its backbone."
"Go, my lad," cried the young queen, laughing; "my august mother knows
|
