| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: he gained them all over to himself. And as this point is worthy of
notice, and to be imitated by others, I am not willing to leave it
out.
[*] Sinigalia, 31st December 1502.
When the duke occupied the Romagna he found it under the rule of weak
masters, who rather plundered their subjects than ruled them, and gave
them more cause for disunion than for union, so that the country was
full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence; and so, wishing
to bring back peace and obedience to authority, he considered it
necessary to give it a good governor. Thereupon he promoted Messer
Ramiro d'Orco,[*] a swift and cruel man, to whom he gave the fullest
The Prince |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: admit it was time. He was sixty if a day; a little man,
with a broad, not very straight back, with bowed shoul-
ders and one leg more bandy than the other, he had that
queer twisted-about appearance you see so often in men
who work in the fields. He had a nut-cracker face--chin
and nose trying to come together over a sunken mouth--
and it was framed in iron-gray fluffy hair, that looked
like a chin strap of cotton-wool sprinkled with coal-dust.
And he had blue eyes in that old face of his, which were
amazingly like a boy's, with that candid expression some
quite common men preserve to the end of their days by
Youth |
