| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: says you are to go to the house; he is on his bed in his own
room, radiant with beauty and dressed in gorgeous apparel. No one
would think he had just come from fighting, but rather that he
was going to a dance, or had done dancing and was sitting down."
With these words she moved the heart of Helen to anger. When she
marked the beautiful neck of the goddess, her lovely bosom, and
sparkling eyes, she marvelled at her and said, "Goddess, why do
you thus beguile me? Are you going to send me afield still
further to some man whom you have taken up in Phrygia or fair
Meonia? Menelaus has just vanquished Alexandrus, and is to take
my hateful self back with him. You are come here to betray me. Go
The Iliad |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: fine things for you, and so bring credit on my own name of Joseph
Bridau."
"You took up my defence," said the count, hastily; "and I hope you
will give me the pleasure of dining with me, as well as my lively
friend Mistigris."
"Your Excellency doesn't know to what you expose yourself," said the
saucy rapin; "'facilis descensus victuali,' as we say at the Black
Hen."
"Bridau!" exclaimed the minister, struck by a sudden thought. "Are you
any relation to one of the most devoted toilers under the Empire, the
head of a bureau, who fell a victim to his zeal?"
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: greatest botanist of his age.
These were Rondelet's palmy days. He had got a theatre of anatomy
built at Montpellier, where he himself dissected publicly. He had,
says tradition, a little botanic garden, such as were springing up
then in several universities, specially in Italy. He had a villa
outside the city, whose tower, near the modern railway station,
still bears the name of the "Mas de Rondelet." There, too, may be
seen the remnants of the great tanks, fed with water brought through
earthen pipes from the Fountain of Albe, wherein he kept the fish
whose habits he observed. Professor Planchon thinks that he had
salt-water tanks likewise; and thus he may have been the father 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 Agesilaus by Xenophon: the region of establishing facts, seeing that the more illustrious a
man is the less can his every act escape notice. As to Agesilaus no
eye-witness has ever reported any unworthy behaviour, nor, had he
invented it, would his tale have found credence, since it was not the
habit of the king, when abroad, to lodge apart in private houses. He
always lay up in some sacred place, where behaviour of the sort was
out of the question, or else in public, with the eyes of all men
liable to be called as witnesses to his sobriety. For myself, if I
make these statements falsely against the knowledge of Hellas, this
were not in any sense to praise my hero, but to dispraise myself.
[8] Or, "than the seductions in question."
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