| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: a vulgar reading of what they used to call his plunges. These
plunges were into depths quieter than the deep sea-caves, and the
habit had at the end of a year or two become the one it would have
cost him most to relinquish. Now they had really, his Dead,
something that was indefensibly theirs; and he liked to think that
they might in cases be the Dead of others, as well as that the Dead
of others might be invoked there under the protection of what he
had done. Whoever bent a knee on the carpet he had laid down
appeared to him to act in the spirit of his intention. Each of his
lights had a name for him, and from time to time a new light was
kindled. This was what he had fundamentally agreed for, that there
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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 Symposium by Xenophon: sorry now. Once he would stand agape at him like one whose gaze is
fixed upon the Gorgons,[38] his eyes one stony stare, and like a stone
himself turn heavily away. But nowadays I have seen the statue
actually blink.[39] And yet, may Heaven help me! my good sirs, I
think, between ourselves, the culprit must have bestowed a kiss on
Cleinias, than which love's flame asks no fiercer fuel.[40] So
insatiable a thing it is and so suggestive of mad fantasy. [And for
this reason held perhaps in higher honour, because of all external
acts the close of lip with lip bears the same name as that of soul
with soul in love.][41] Wherefore, say I, let every one who wishes to
be master of himself and sound of soul abstain from kisses imprinted
The Symposium |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: are examined closely and in detail, the analogy appears still
more striking, and one is surprised to find amongst them, just as
much as amongst the haughtiest scions of a feudal race, pride of
birth, respect for their ancestry and their descendants, disdain
of their inferiors, a dread of contact, a taste for etiquette,
precedents, and antiquity.]
The permanent inequality of conditions not only gives
servants certain peculiar virtues and vices, but it places them
in a peculiar relation with respect to their masters. Amongst
aristocratic nations the poor man is familiarized from his
childhood with the notion of being commanded: to whichever side
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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 At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: be. After pointing to the singular sentinel, the most jovial, as he
seemed, of the apprentices retired and came back holding an instrument
whose hard metal pipe is now superseded by a leather tube; and they
all grinned with mischief as they looked down on the loiterer, and
sprinkled him with a fine white shower of which the scent proved that
three chins had just been shaved. Standing on tiptoe, in the farthest
corner of their loft, to enjoy their victim's rage, the lads ceased
laughing on seeing the haughty indifference with which the young man
shook his cloak, and the intense contempt expressed by his face as he
glanced up at the empty window-frame.
At this moment a slender white hand threw up the lower half of one of
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