| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: mistress's laces with the claws carefully drawn in. The minister, in
matters of the heart, had few emotions. There was not another
statesman under the Restoration who had so completely done with
gallantry as he; even the opposition papers, the "Miroir," "Pandora,"
and "Figaro," could not find a single throbbing artery with which to
reproach him. Madame Rabourdin knew this, but she knew also that
ghosts return to old castles, and she had taken it into her head to
make the minister jealous of the happiness which des Lupeaulx was
appearing to enjoy. The latter's throat literally gurgled with the
name of his divinity. To launch his supposed mistress successfully, he
was endeavoring to persuade the Marquise d'Espard, Madame de Nucingen,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: Heaven, in a condition which compelled me to make merchandise of science
for the bettering of my fortune; and though I might not profess to scorn
glory as a cynic, I yet made very slight account of that honor which I
hoped to acquire only through fictitious titles. And, in fine, of false
sciences I thought I knew the worth sufficiently to escape being deceived
by the professions of an alchemist, the predictions of an astrologer, the
impostures of a magician, or by the artifices and boasting of any of those
who profess to know things of which they are ignorant.
For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the
control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and
resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself,
Reason Discourse |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: do not attain to the clearness of ideas, or to the knowledge of poetry or
of any other art as a whole.
In the Protagoras the ancient poets are recognized by Protagoras himself as
the original sophists; and this family resemblance may be traced in the
Ion. The rhapsode belongs to the realm of imitation and of opinion: he
professes to have all knowledge, which is derived by him from Homer, just
as the sophist professes to have all wisdom, which is contained in his art
of rhetoric. Even more than the sophist he is incapable of appreciating
the commonest logical distinctions; he cannot explain the nature of his own
art; his great memory contrasts with his inability to follow the steps of
the argument. And in his highest moments of inspiration he has an eye to
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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 Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: crimson sward toward the shore of the Lost Sea of Korus.
The rays of the nearer moon, swinging low across the valley,
touched his jewel-incrusted harness with a thousand changing lights
and glanced from the glossy ebony of his smooth hide. Twice he
turned his head back toward the forest, after the manner of one who is
upon an evil errand, though he must have felt quite safe from pursuit.
I did not dare follow him there beneath the moonlight, since
it best suited my plans not to interrupt his--I wished him to reach
his destination unsuspecting, that I might learn just where that
The Warlord of Mars |
