| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: private individuals with confidence, because the State alone
appears to be endowed with strength and durability. *c Thus the
sovereign does not confine himself to the management of the
public treasury; he interferes in private money matters; he is
the superior, and often the master, of all the members of the
community; and, in addition to this, he assumes the part of their
steward and paymaster.
[Footnote c: On the one hand the taste for worldly welfare is
perpetually increasing, and on the other the government gets more
and more complete possession of the sources of that welfare.
Thus men are following two separate roads to servitude: the taste
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: perfect readiness to fight duels.
Every Intendant, chosen by the Comptroller-General out of the lower-
born members of the Council of State; a needy young plebeian with
his fortune to make, and a stranger to the province, was, in spite
of his greed, ambition, chicane, arbitrary tyranny, a better man--
abler, more energetic, and often, to judge from the pages of De
Tocqueville, with far more sympathy and mercy for the wretched
peasantry--than was the count or marquis in the chateau above, who
looked down on him as a roturier; and let him nevertheless become
first his deputy, and then his master.
Understand me--I am not speaking against the hereditary principle of
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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 Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: Intellectual debauchery in the froth of existence! Froth and
fraud!
On the same side of the table Miss Moorsom never once looked
towards her father, all her grace as if frozen, her red lips
compressed, the faintest rosiness under her dazzling complexion,
her black eyes burning motionless, and the very coppery gleams of
light lying still on the waves and undulation of her hair.
Renouard fancied himself overturning the table, smashing crystal
and china, treading fruit and flowers under foot, seizing her in
his arms, carrying her off in a tumult of shrieks from all these
people, a silent frightened mortal, into some profound retreat as
Within the Tides |
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 Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: his eye-glass, his affected superciliousness, his contemptuous glance
at the coffer which had just given so much pleasure to the rich
heiress, and which he evidently regarded as without value, or even as
ridiculous,--all these things, which shocked the Cruchots and the des
Grassins, pleased Eugenie so deeply that before she slept she dreamed
long dreams of her phoenix cousin.
The loto-numbers were drawn very slowly, and presently the game came
suddenly to an end. La Grand Nanon entered and said aloud: "Madame, I
want the sheets for monsieur's bed."
Madame Grandet followed her out. Madame des Grassins said in a low
voice: "Let us keep our sous and stop playing." Each took his or her
Eugenie Grandet |
