| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: nothing. He was forced to struggle with the patient, whom he managed
in a way that excited the admiration of the doctors. At all hours his
watchful eyes were like lamps always lighted. He showed no resentment
to Clementine, and listened to her thanks without accepting them; he
seemed both dumb and deaf. To himself he was saying, "She shall owe
his life to me," and he wrote the thought as it were in letters of
fire on the walls of Adam's room. On the fifteenth day Clementine was
forced to give up the nursing, lest she should utterly break down. Paz
was unwearied. At last, towards the end of August, Bianchon, the
family physician, told Clementine that Adam was out of danger.
"Ah, madame, you are under no obligation to me," he said; "without his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: representatives of the small traders' class is that they do not
intellectually leap the bounds which that class itself does not leap in
practical life; that, consequently, they are theoretically driven to the
same problems and solutions, to which material interests and social
standing practically drive the latter. Such, in fact, is at all times
the relation of the "political" and the "literary" representatives of a
class to the class they represent.
After the foregoing explanations, it goes with-out saying that, while
the Mountain is constantly wrestling for the republic and the so-called
"rights of man," neither the republic nor the "rights of man" is its
real goal, as little as an army, whose weapons it is sought to deprive
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: year they were all scattered, and one of the nieces offered to
lend us her cottage if we'd relieve her of duty for two months.
It was a nuisance for me, of course, for Wrenfield is two hours
from town; but my mother, who was a slave to family observances,
had always been good to the old man, so it was natural we should
be called on--and there was the saving of rent and the good air
for Kate. So we went.
"You never knew Joseph Lenman? Well, picture to yourself an
amoeba or some primitive organism of that sort, under a Titan's
microscope. He was large, undifferentiated, inert--since I could
remember him he had done nothing but take his temperature and
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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 Critias by Plato: were many temples built and dedicated to many gods; also gardens and places
of exercise, some for men, and others for horses in both of the two islands
formed by the zones; and in the centre of the larger of the two there was
set apart a race-course of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to
extend all round the island, for horses to race in. Also there were guard-
houses at intervals for the guards, the more trusted of whom were appointed
to keep watch in the lesser zone, which was nearer the Acropolis; while the
most trusted of all had houses given them within the citadel, near the
persons of the kings. The docks were full of triremes and naval stores,
and all things were quite ready for use. Enough of the plan of the royal
palace.
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