| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: with tears, answered for him. The offer seemed prompted by indulgent
fatherhood, saying to him: "Deserve Cesarine by becoming rich and
respected."
"Monsieur," he answered at last, "I will succeed!"
"That's what I said at your age," cried the perfumer; "that was my
motto. If you don't win my daughter, at least you will win your
fortune. Eh, boy! what is it?"
"Let me hope that in acquiring the one I may obtain the other."
"I can't prevent you from hoping, my friend," said Birotteau, touched
by Anselme's tone.
"Well, then, monsieur, can I begin to-day to look for a shop, so as to
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: do you continue to side with these damn'd Quakers? Had not you
better sell them? The proprietor would give you a good price."
"The governor," says I, "has not yet blacked them enough."
He, indeed, had labored hard to blacken the Assembly in all
his messages, but they wip'd off his coloring as fast as he
laid it on, and plac'd it, in return, thick upon his own face;
so that, finding he was likely to be negrofied himself, he, as well
as Mr. Hamilton, grew tir'd of the contest, and quitted the government.
<13>These public quarrels were all at bottom owing to the proprietaries,
our hereditary governors, who, when any expense was to be incurred
for the defense of their province, with incredible meanness instructed
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: course that couldn't straighten matters between Launce-
lot and the king, and didn't."
"Oh, dear, only one thing could result -- I see that.
War, and the knights of the realm divided into a king's
party and a Sir Launcelot's party."
"Yes -- that was the way of it. The king sent the
queen to the stake, proposing to purify her with fire.
Launcelot and his knights rescued her, and in doing it
slew certain good old friends of yours and mine -- in
fact, some of the best we ever had; to wit, Sir Belias le
Orgulous, Sir Segwarides, Sir Griflet le Fils de Dieu,
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
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 Phaedo by Plato: ever trust again?' But there is a better and higher spirit to be gathered
from the Phaedo, as well as from the other writings of Plato, which says
that first principles should be most constantly reviewed (Phaedo and
Crat.), and that the highest subjects demand of us the greatest accuracy
(Republic); also that we must not become misologists because arguments are
apt to be deceivers.
2. In former ages there was a customary rather than a reasoned belief in
the immortality of the soul. It was based on the authority of the Church,
on the necessity of such a belief to morality and the order of society, on
the evidence of an historical fact, and also on analogies and figures of
speech which filled up the void or gave an expression in words to a
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