| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: "What seems to you a problem," said I, interrupting, "is really quite
natural."
"Oh!" she cried, letting an incredulous smile wander over her lips.
"You think that beasts are wholly without passions?" I asked her.
"Quite the reverse; we can communicate to them all the vices arising
in our own state of civilization."
She looked at me with an air of astonishment.
"But," I continued, "the first time I saw M. Martin, I admit, like
you, I did give vent to an exclamation of surprise. I found myself
next to an old soldier with the right leg amputated, who had come in
with me. His face had struck me. He had one of those heroic heads,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: expresses in a sort of riddle, for 'Know thyself!' and 'Be temperate!' are
the same, as I maintain, and as the letters imply (Greek), and yet they may
be easily misunderstood; and succeeding sages who added 'Never too much,'
or, 'Give a pledge, and evil is nigh at hand,' would appear to have so
misunderstood them; for they imagined that 'Know thyself!' was a piece of
advice which the god gave, and not his salutation of the worshippers at
their first coming in; and they dedicated their own inscription under the
idea that they too would give equally useful pieces of advice. Shall I
tell you, Socrates, why I say all this? My object is to leave the previous
discussion (in which I know not whether you or I are more right, but, at
any rate, no clear result was attained), and to raise a new one in which I
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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 Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: scandalous ignorance as to Latin, as well as the more useful though
more neglected things: and this, doubtless, would all be laid to
the account of his education having been entrusted to an ignorant
female teacher, who had presumed to take in hand what she was
wholly incompetent to perform. I was not delivered from his
brother till full twelve months after, when he also was despatched
in the same state of disgraceful ignorance as the former.
Master Charles was his mother's peculiar darling. He was little
more than a year younger than John, but much smaller, paler, and
less active and robust; a pettish, cowardly, capricious, selfish
little fellow, only active in doing mischief, and only clever in
Agnes Grey |
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 Princess by Alfred Tennyson: See that there be no traitors in your camp:
We seem a nest of traitors--none to trust
Since our arms failed--this Egypt-plague of men!
Almost our maids were better at their homes,
Than thus man-girdled here: indeed I think
Our chiefest comfort is the little child
Of one unworthy mother; which she left:
She shall not have it back: the child shall grow
To prize the authentic mother of her mind.
I took it for an hour in mine own bed
This morning: there the tender orphan hands
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