| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: For the peace that is the sweetest isn't born of minted gold,
And the joy that lasts the longest and still lingers when we're old
Is no dim and distant pleasure--it is not to-morrow's prize,
It is not the end of toiling, or the rainbdw of our sighs.
It' is every day within us--all the rest is hippodrome--
And the soul that is the gladdest is the soul that builds a home.
They are fools who build for glory! They are fools who pin their hopes
On the come and go of battles or some vessel's slender ropes.
They shall sicken and shall wither and shall never peace attain
Who believe that real contentment only men victorious gain.
For the only happy toilers under earth's majestic dome
Just Folks |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: essentially amiable and complaisant. 'Tiens!' it said to itself,
'here's this good Monsieur Thuillier going to be a candidate for the
Chamber; how hampered he'll be by his attitude to his ex-friend
Monsieur de la Peyrade, with whom he wishes now he hadn't quarrelled.
I'll summon him for fees he doesn't owe; that will bring him to the
Palais where la Peyrade comes daily; and in that way he can meet him
by chance, and so avoid taking a step which would hurt his self-love."
"Well, there you are mistaken!" cried Thuillier, breaking the ice. "I
used so little craft, as you call it, that I've just come from your
house, there! and your portress told me where to find you."
"Well done!" said la Peyrade, "I like this frankness; I can get on
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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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: the priests very rich presents. This is what most authors write
concerning the oracles. But Alexander, in a letter to his mother,
tells her there were some secret answers, which at his return he
would communicate to her only. Others say that the priest,
desirous as a piece of courtesy to address him in Greek, "O
Paidion," by a slip in pronunciation ended with the s instead of
the n, and said, "O Paidios," which mistake Alexander was well
enough pleased with, and it went for current that the oracle had
called him so.
Among the sayings of one Psammon, a philosopher, whom he heard in
Egypt, he most approved of this, that all men are governed by God,
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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 Purse by Honore de Balzac: light jests, quite innocent in appearance, but no doubt with the
object of watching for a moment when the sum was worth stealing.
"The old admiral has perhaps good reasons for not marrying
Adelaide, and so the Baroness has tried----"
But at this hypothesis he checked himself, not finishing his
thought, which was contradicted by a very just reflection, "If
the Baroness hopes to get me to marry her daughter," thought he,
"they would not have robbed me."
Then, clinging to his illusions, to the love that already had
taken such deep root, he tried to find a justification in some
accident. "The purse must have fallen on the floor," said he to
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