| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: Pricked forward by their guide's example good,
Killed were the Pagans, broke their bows and slings:
Some died, some fell; some yielded, none withstood:
A massacre was this, no fight; these put
Their foes to death, those hold their throats to cut.
LVII
Small while they stood, with heart and hardy face,
On their bold breasts deep wounds and hurts to bear,
But fled away, and troubled in the chase
Their ranks disordered be with too much fear:
Rinaldo followed them from place to place,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: effect; for the fact was forgotten, and rediscovered centuries after by
Tycho Brahe. To Albatani, however, we owe two really valuable
heirlooms. The one is the use of the sine, or half-chord of the double
arc, instead of the chord of the arc itself, which had been employed by
the Greek astronomers; the other, of even more practical benefit, was
the introduction of the present decimal arithmetic, instead of the
troublesome sexagesimal arithmetic of the Greeks. These ten digits,
however, seem, says Professor Whewell, by the confession of the Arabians
themselves, to be of Indian origin, and thus form no exception to the
sterility of the Arabian genius in scientific inventions. Nevertheless
we are bound, in all fairness, to set against his condemnation of the
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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 Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: something more than disdain when she met him in society; for his
insolence far surpassed that of other men which the marquise had ended
by overlooking. At first she thought of keeping the letter; but on
second thoughts she burned it.
"Madame had just received such a fine love-letter; and she read it,"
said Caroline to the housemaid.
"I should never have thought that of madame," replied the other, quite
surprised.
That evening Madame de Listomere went to a party at the Marquis de
Beauseant's, where Rastignac would probably betake himself. It was
Saturday. The Marquis de Beauseant was in some way a connection of
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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 Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: dilatory gaze. At last he plunged his hand into the opaque
fluid and drew forth a long, slim, yellowish-green lizard,
with a coiling, sinuous tail and a pointed, evil head.
The reptile squirmed and doubled itself backward around
his wrist, darting out and in with dizzy swiftness its tiny
forked tongue.
The doctor held the thing up to the light, and, scrutinizing it
through his spectacles, nodded his head in sedate approval.
A grim smile curled in his beard.
"Yes, you are the type," he murmured to it, with evident
enjoyment in the conceit. "Your name isn't Johnny any more.
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
