| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: me: I desire that actual marriage shall be the result of a
previous and long marriage of souls. A young girl, a woman, has
throughout her life only this one moment when reflection, second
sight, and experience are necessary to her. She plays her liberty,
her happiness, and she is not allowed to throw the dice; she risks
her all, and is forced to be a mere spectator. I have the right,
the will, the power to make my own unhappiness, and I use them, as
did my mother, who, won by beauty and led by instinct, married the
most generous, the most liberal, the most loving of men. I know
that you are free, a poet, and noble-looking. Be sure that I
should not have chosen one of your brothers in Apollo who was
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: d'Herbois is like that of the Grand Turk. No one can come into
his presence without three repeated requests; a string of
apartments precedes his reception-room, and no one approaches
nearer than fifteen paces.''
One can picture the immense vanity of these dictators as
they solemnly entered the towns, surrounded by guards, men whose
gesture was enough to cause heads to fall.
Petty lawyers without clients, doctors without patients,
unfrocked clergymen, obscure attorneys, who had formerly known
the most colourless of lives, were suddenly made the equals of
the most powerful tyrants of history. Guillotining, drowning,
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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 Charmides by Plato: to the Alexandrian Canon. But I hardly think that we are justified in
attributing much weight to the authority of the Alexandrian librarians in
an age when there was no regular publication of books, and every temptation
to forge them; and in which the writings of a school were naturally
attributed to the founder of the school. And even without intentional
fraud, there was an inclination to believe rather than to enquire. Would
Mr. Grote accept as genuine all the writings which he finds in the lists of
learned ancients attributed to Hippocrates, to Xenophon, to Aristotle? The
Alexandrian Canon of the Platonic writings is deprived of credit by the
admission of the Epistles, which are not only unworthy of Plato, and in
several passages plagiarized from him, but flagrantly at variance with
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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 Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: teak-wood furniture after the Manchu fashion, with one or two
large, comfortable, leather-covered easy chairs of foreign make.
Clocks sat upon the tables and window-sills, and fine Swiss
watches hung on the walls. Beautiful jade and other rich Chinese
ornaments were arranged in a tasteful way about the room. On the
wall hung a picture painted by the Empress Dowager, a gift to the
Prince on his birthday.
After a moment's waiting the Princess appeared attended by her
women and slave girls.
"I beg your pardon for not having my hair properly dressed," she
said, as she took my hands in hers, the custom of these Manchu
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