| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: learned man was put to death for having a toad in a bottle?"
"Yes, I know that; but we are not in those light ages," replied Madame
Fontaine, facetiously.
"As for you, Madame Nourrisson, the complaint is that you gather your
fruit unripe. You ought to know by this time the laws and regulations,
and I warn you that everything under twenty-one years of age is
forbidden. I wonder I have to remind you of it. Now, aunt, what I have
to say to you is confidential."
Thus dismissed, two of the Fates departed.
Since the days when Jacques Collin had abdicated his former kingship
and had made himself, as they say, a new skin in the police force,
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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 Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: possible; because twilight would soon come, and Peony's frock was
not yet finished, and grandfather was expected, by railroad,
pretty early in the morning. Faster and faster, therefore, went
her flying fingers. The children, likewise, kept busily at work
in the garden, and still the mother listened, whenever she could
catch a word. She was amused to observe how their little
imaginations had got mixed up with what they were doing, and
carried away by it. They seemed positively to think that the
snow-child would run about and play with them.
"What a nice playmate she will be for us, all winter long!" said
Violet. "I hope papa will not be afraid of her giving us a cold!
The Snow Image |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: there are more philosophers in those countries than anywhere else in the
world. This, however, is a secret which the Lacedaemonians deny; and they
pretend to be ignorant, just because they do not wish to have it thought
that they rule the world by wisdom, like the Sophists of whom Protagoras
was speaking, and not by valour of arms; considering that if the reason of
their superiority were disclosed, all men would be practising their wisdom.
And this secret of theirs has never been discovered by the imitators of
Lacedaemonian fashions in other cities, who go about with their ears
bruised in imitation of them, and have the caestus bound on their arms, and
are always in training, and wear short cloaks; for they imagine that these
are the practices which have enabled the Lacedaemonians to conquer the
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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 Cratylus by Plato: does not recognize that the irregular, equally with the regular, are
subject to law, and that a language which had no exceptions would not be a
natural growth: for it could not have been subjected to the influences by
which language is ordinarily affected. It is always wanting to describe
ancient languages in the terms of a modern one. It has a favourite fiction
that one word is put in the place of another; the truth is that no word is
ever put for another. It has another fiction, that a word has been
omitted: words are omitted because they are no longer needed; and the
omission has ceased to be observed. The common explanation of kata or some
other preposition 'being understood' in a Greek sentence is another fiction
of the same kind, which tends to disguise the fact that under cases were
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