| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: affairs of men, is yet an art like other arts. Of these we
may distinguish two great classes: those arts, like
sculpture, painting, acting, which are representative, or, as
used to be said very clumsily, imitative; and those, like
architecture, music, and the dance, which are self-
sufficient, and merely presentative. Each class, in right of
this distinction, obeys principles apart; yet both may claim
a common ground of existence, and it may be said with
sufficient justice that the motive and end of any art
whatever is to make a pattern; a pattern, it may be, of
colours, of sounds, of changing attitudes, geometrical
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: D'Artagnan - the elderly D'Artagnan of the VICOMTE DE
BRAGELONNE. I know not a more human soul, nor, in his way, a
finer; I shall be very sorry for the man who is so much of a
pedant in morals that he cannot learn from the Captain of
Musketeers. Lastly, I must name the PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, a
book that breathes of every beautiful and valuable emotion.
But of works of art little can be said; their influence is
profound and silent, like the influence of nature; they mould
by contact; we drink them up like water, and are bettered,
yet know not how. It is in books more specifically didactic
that we can follow out the effect, and distinguish and weigh
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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 Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: A tender and lascivious wantoness,
That thother day was almost dead for love?
And what, I pray you, is his goodly guard?
Such as, but scant them of their chines of beef
And take away their downy featherbeds,
And presently they are as resty stiff,
As twere a many over ridden jades.
Then, French men, scorn that such should be your Lords,
And rather bind ye them in captive bands.
ALL FRENCHMEN.
Vive le Roy! God save King John of France!
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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 Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: my reason. I shall have paid dearly, perhaps by the happiness of my
whole life, for the slowness and want of vigor which I have shown in
seeking the solution of my doubts. I have now decided to search to the
bottom of them. No one so well as you, Monsieur l'abbe, can help me to
solve them. I have come with confidence to lay them before you, to ask
you to listen to me, to answer me, and to tell me by what studies I
can pursue the search for light. It is a cruelly afflicted soul that
appeals to you. Is not that a good ground for the seed of your word?"
The Abbe Gondrin eagerly protested the joy with which, notwithstanding
his own insufficiency, he would undertake to reply to the scruples of
conscience in the young savant. After asking him for a place in his
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