| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: destined to end in this very chateau, twenty-eight years later, namely
in 1588, when Henri III., under the very eyes of his mother, at that
moment deeply humiliated by the Lorrains, heard fall upon the floor of
his own cabinet, the head of the boldest of all the Guises, the second
Balafre, son of that first Balafre by whom Catherine de' Medici was
now being tricked, watched, threatened, and virtually imprisoned.
IV
THE QUEEN-MOTHER
This noble chateau of Blois was to Catherine de' Medici the narrowest
of prisons. On the death of her husband, who had always held her in
subjection, she expected to reign; but, on the contrary, she found
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can
never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue
of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and
the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the
Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.
We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi
cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for
which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be
satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness
like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great
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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 Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause
of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict
itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a
result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible,
and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the
other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just
God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other
men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The
prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has been
answered fully.
"The Almighty has his own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because
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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 The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: "Blondet, if you were not tipsy, I should really feel hurt! He is the
one serious literary character among us; for his benefit, I honor you
by treating you like men of taste, I am distilling my tale for you,
and now he criticises me! There is no greater proof of intellectual
sterility, my friends, than the piling up of facts. Le Misanthrope,
that supreme comedy, shows us that art consists in the power of
building a palace on a needle's point. The gist of my idea is in the
fairy wand which can turn the Desert into an Interlaken in ten seconds
(precisely the time required to empty this glass). Would you rather
that I fired off at you like a cannon-ball, or a commander-in-chief's
report? We chat and laugh; and this journalist, a bibliophobe when
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