| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: undeceive him? No doubt it would have been better; but I should not be
avenged, nor the honour of my husband vindicated, should he find so
clear and easy an escape from the strait into which his depravity
has led him. Let the traitor pay with his life for the temerity of his
wanton wishes, and let the world know (if haply it shall ever come
to know) that Camilla not only preserved her allegiance to her
husband, but avenged him of the man who dared to wrong him. Still, I
think it might be better to disclose this to Anselmo. But then I
have called his attention to it in the letter I wrote to him in the
country, and, if he did nothing to prevent the mischief I there
pointed out to him, I suppose it was that from pure goodness of
Don Quixote |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: progress, look on the art of waiting for dead men's shoes as a
step in the right direction? To this art we owe several honorable
professions, which open up ways of living on death. There are
people who rely entirely on an expected demise; who brood over
it, crouching each morning upon a corpse, that serves again for
their pillow at night. To this class belong bishops' coadjutors,
cardinals' supernumeraries, tontiniers, and the like. Add to the
list many delicately scrupulous persons eager to buy landed
property beyond their means, who calculate with dry logic and in
cold blood the probable duration of the life of a father or of a
step-mother, some old man or woman of eighty or ninety, saying to
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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 Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: woman, even as God above the angels, he goes on triumphantly
to adduce the testimonies of Tertullian, Augustine, Ambrose,
Basil, Chrysostom, and the Pandects; and having gathered this
little cloud of witnesses about him, like pursuivants about a
herald, he solemnly proclaims all reigning women to be
traitoresses and rebels against God; discharges all men
thenceforward from holding any office under such monstrous
regiment, and calls upon all the lieges with one consent to
"STUDY TO REPRESS THE INORDINATE PRIDE AND TYRANNY" OF
QUEENS. If this is not treasonable teaching, one would be
glad to know what is; and yet, as if he feared he had not
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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 Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: you please) go hand-in-hand through the different phrases of your
letter, and candidly examine each from the point of view of its
truth, its appositeness, and its charity.
Damien was COARSE.
It is very possible. You make us sorry for the lepers, who had
only a coarse old peasant for their friend and father. But you,
who were so refined, why were you not there, to cheer them with the
lights of culture? Or may I remind you that we have some reason to
doubt if John the Baptist were genteel; and in the case of Peter,
on whose career your doubtless dwell approvingly in the pulpit, no
doubt at all he was a "coarse, headstrong" fisherman! Yet even in
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