| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: aequato omnium periculo spem fugae tolleret, cohortatus suos proelium
commisit. Milites loco superiore pilis missis facile hostium phalangem
perfregerunt. Ea disiecta gladiis destrictis in eos impetum fecerunt.
Gallis magno ad pugnam erat impedimento quod pluribus eorum scutis uno
ictu pilorum transfixis et conligatis, cum ferrum se inflexisset, neque
evellere neque sinistra impedita satis commode pugnare poterant, multi ut
diu iactato bracchio praeoptarent scutum manu emittere et nudo corpore
pugnare. Tandem vulneribus defessi et pedem referre et, quod mons suberit
circiter mille passuum , eo se recipere coeperunt. Capto monte et
succedentibus nostris, Boi et Tulingi, qui hominum milibus circiter XV
agmen hostium claudebant et novissimis praesidio erant, ex itinere nostros
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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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: that I fired off at you like a cannon-ball, or a commander-in-chief's
report? We chat and laugh; and this journalist, a bibliophobe when
sober, expects me, forsooth, when he is drunk, to teach my tongue to
move at the dull jogtrot of a printed book." (Here he affected to
weep.) "Woe unto the French imagination when men fain would blunt the
needle points of her pleasant humor! Dies iroe! Let us weep for
Candide. Long live the Kritik of Pure Reason, La Symbolique, and the
systems in five closely packed volumes, printed by Germans, who little
suspect that the gist of the matter has been known in Paris since
1750, and crystallized in a few trenchant words--the diamonds of our
national thought. Blondet is driving a hearse to his own suicide;
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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 Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: expect stone to be as pliable as clay.'
'No, but still it is very unpleasant to live with such
unimpressible, incomprehensible creatures. You cannot love them;
and if you could, your love would be utterly thrown away: they
could neither return it, nor value, nor understand it. But,
however, even if I should stumble on such a family again, which is
quite unlikely, I have all this experience to begin with, and I
should manage better another time; and the end and aim of this
preamble is, let me try again.'
'Well, my girl, you are not easily discouraged, I see: I am glad
of that. But, let me tell you, you are a good deal paler and
Agnes Grey |
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 Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: inclined to wonder at his friend. Michael was usually attired in
the height of fashion, with a certain mercantile brilliancy best
described perhaps as stylish; nor could anything be said against
him, as a rule, but that he looked a trifle too like a wedding
guest to be quite a gentleman. Today he had fallen altogether
from these heights. He wore a flannel shirt of washed-out
shepherd's tartan, and a suit of reddish tweeds, of the colour
known to tailors as 'heather mixture'; his neckcloth was black,
and tied loosely in a sailor's knot; a rusty ulster partly
concealed these advantages; and his feet were shod with rough
walking boots. His hat was an old soft felt, which he removed
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