| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: one or other of them was the "cavaliere servente"; but it does not.
The lady is a mystery. She is married, though none of us have seen her
husband. Monsieur Firmiani is altogether mythical; he is like that
third post-horse for which we pay though we never behold it. Madame
has the finest contralto voice in Europe, so say judges; but she has
never been heard to sing more than two or three times since she came
to Paris. She receives much company, but goes nowhere."
The Observer speaks, you will notice, as an Oracle. His words,
anecdotes, and quotations must be accepted as truths, under pain of
being thought without social education or intelligence, and of causing
him to slander you with much zest in twenty salons where he is
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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 Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: them used such influence as they had over their flocks in the
cause of peace and humanity. True to the spirit of their
calling, they tried to soothe the passions of the excited
peasantry, and opposed rapine and violence, whenever they could,
with all their might. And this conduct they pursued against the
express wishes of the authorities. Later on some of them were
made to suffer for this disobedience by being removed abruptly to
the far north or sent away to Siberian parishes.
The servant was anxious to get rid of the few peasants who had
got into the house. What sort of conduct was that, he asked
them, toward a man who was only a tenant, had been invariably
A Personal Record |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: native to the soil of France! We looked upon these things as upon a
spectacle, and groaned over them, without taking upon ourselves to
act.
Juste, whom no one ever sought, and who never sought any one, was, at
five-and-twenty, a great politician, a man with a wonderful aptitude
for apprehending the correlation between remote history and the facts
of the present and of the future. In 1831, he told me exactly what
would and did happen--the murders, the conspiracies, the ascendency of
the Jews, the difficulty of doing anything in France, the scarcity of
talent in the higher circles, and the abundance of intellect in the
lowest ranks, where the finest courage is smothered under cigar ashes.
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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 From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: fleets back, the price at London has been very high; but this is
very seldom and uncertain. Lymington sends two members to
Parliament, and this and her salt trade is all I can say to her;
for though she is very well situated as to the convenience of
shipping I do not find they have any foreign commerce, except it be
what we call smuggling and roguing; which, I may say, is the
reigning commerce of all this part of the English coast, from the
mouth of the Thames to the Land's End of Cornwall.
From hence there are but few towns on the sea-coast west, though
there are several considerable rivers empty themselves into the
sea; nor are there any harbours or seaports of any note except
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