| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: If there be much and rapid speaking, the mouth froths.
The hair sometimes bristles; but I shall return to this subject
in another chapter, when I treat of the mingled emotions of rage
and terror. There is in most cases a strongly-marked frown
on the forehead; for this follows from the sense of anything
displeasing or difficult, together with concentration of mind.
But sometimes the brow, instead of being much contracted and lowered,
remains smooth, with the glaring eyes kept widely open.
The eyes are always bright, or may, as Homer expresses it,
glisten with fire. They are sometimes bloodshot, and are said
to protrude from their sockets--the result, no doubt, of the head
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: they are only recited in order to be believed, and not with any view to
criticism or instruction; and who thinks that even the best of writings are
but a reminiscence of what we know, and that only in principles of justice
and goodness and nobility taught and communicated orally for the sake of
instruction and graven in the soul, which is the true way of writing, is
there clearness and perfection and seriousness, and that such principles
are a man's own and his legitimate offspring;--being, in the first place,
the word which he finds in his own bosom; secondly, the brethren and
descendants and relations of his idea which have been duly implanted by him
in the souls of others;--and who cares for them and no others--this is the
right sort of man; and you and I, Phaedrus, would pray that we may become
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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 Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: "and he is a husband well threatened too; it is a good thing
for him that he is a prince of such high rank, that he has
an army to safeguard for him that which is his own."
Bragelonne watched for some time the conduct of the two
lovers, listened to the loud and uncivil slumbers of
Manicamp, who snored as imperiously as though he was wearing
his blue and gold, instead of his violet suit.
Then he turned towards the night breeze which bore towards
him, he seemed to think, the distant song of the
nightingale; and, after having laid in a due provision of
melancholy, another nocturnal malady, he retired to rest
Ten Years Later |
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 Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: me, did you ever have anything to do with women?"
When I said no, I suddenly heard him break out sobbing, like
a little child.
I sobbed and cried, too, and for a long time we stayed weeping
tears of joy, with the screen between us, and we were neither of us
ashamed, but both so joyful that I look on that moment as one of
the happiest in my whole life.
No arguments or homilies could ever have effected what the
emotion I experienced at that moment did. Such tears as those shed
by a father of sixty can never be forgotten even in moments of the
strongest temptation.
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