| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: enervating pleasures, or indulge only to a fixed limit proportioned to
their powers. This explains the life of such men as Walter Scott,
Cuvier, Voltaire, Newton, Buffon, Bayle, Bossuet, Leibnitz, Lopez de
Vega, Calderon, Boccacio, Aretino, Aristotle--in short, every man who
delighted, governed, or led his contemporaries.
A man may and ought to pride himself more on his will than on his
talent. Though Talent has its germ in a cultivated gift, Will means
the incessant conquest of his instincts, of proclivities subdued and
mortified, and difficulties of every kind heroically defeated. The
abuse of smoking encouraged Lousteau's indolence. Tobacco, which can
lull grief, inevitably numbs a man's energy.
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: and that to guilt so easily detected, and so severely
punished, an adequate temptation would not readily
be found.
Yet so it is, that in defiance of censure and
contempt, truth is frequently violated; and scarcely the
most vigilant and unremitted circumspection will
secure him that mixes with mankind, from being
hourly deceived by men of whom it can scarcely
be imagined, that they mean any injury to him or
profit to themselves: even where the subject of
conversation could not have been expected to put
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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 Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put
it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it
away with the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of
the other animals make when they are in distress. I wish it would
not talk; it is always talking. That sounds like a cheap fling
at the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so. I have never
heard the human voice before, and any new and strange sound
intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming
solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new
sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my
ear, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only
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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 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: a few steps behind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each
time Prince Nesvitski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed
him back again and pressed him against the railings, and all he
could do was to smile.
"What a fine fellow you are, friend!" said the Cossack to a convoy
soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were
crowded together close to his wheels and his horses. "What a fellow!
You can't wait a moment! Don't you see the general wants to pass?"
But the convoyman took no notice of the word "general" and shouted
at the soldiers who were blocking his way. "Hi there, boys! Keep to
the left! Wait a bit." But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder
War and Peace |
