| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: results, a few of the vanguard of calumnies always survive. In
our day, for instance, Napoleon was condemned by our
contemporaries when he spread his eagle's wings to alight in
England: only 1822 could explain 1804 and the flatboats at
Boulogne.
As, in Desplein, his glory and science were invulnerable, his
enemies attacked his odd moods and his temper, whereas, in fact,
he was simply characterized by what the English call
eccentricity. Sometimes very handsomely dressed, like Crebillon
the tragical, he would suddenly affect extreme indifference as to
what he wore; he was sometimes seen in a carriage, and sometimes
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: entered.'
Otto laid the paper before him; as he read, his fingers played
tattoo upon the table. 'Was it proposed,' he inquired, 'to send
this paper forth without a knowledge of my pleasure?'
One of the non-combatants, eager to trim, volunteered an answer.
'The Herr Doctor von Hohenstockwitz had just entered his dissent,'
he added.
'Give me the rest of this correspondence,' said the Prince. It was
handed to him, and he read it patiently from end to end, while the
councillors sat foolishly enough looking before them on the table.
The secretaries, in the background, were exchanging glances of
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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 A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: floor, and Knight was regarding her from the terrace balustrade,
upon which he had been idly sitting for some time--dividing the
glances of his eye between the pages of a book in his hand, the
brilliant hues of the geraniums and calceolarias, and the open
window above-mentioned.
'Yes, it is, I know. I am coming.'
He drew closer, and under the window.
'How are you this morning, Elfride? You look no better for your
long night's rest.'
She appeared at the door shortly after, took his offered arm, and
together they walked slowly down the gravel path leading to the
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
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 The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days,
too; and he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads,
and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so
forth; and knows everything about everything, except why a hen's
egg don't turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little
things which no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.
And all this from what he learnt when he was a water-baby,
underneath the sea.
"And of course Tom married Ellie?"
My dear child, what a silly notion! Don't you know that no one
ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a
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