| 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: year, one of the physicians of the Hotel-Dieu took Desplein by
the arm, as if to question him, in Bianchon's presence.
"What were you doing at Saint-Sulpice, my dear master?" said he.
"I went to see a priest who has a diseased knee-bone, and to whom
the Duchesse d'Angouleme did me the honor to recommend me," said
Desplein.
The questioner took this defeat for an answer; not so Bianchon.
"Oh, he goes to see damaged knees in church!--He went to mass,"
said the young man to himself.
Bianchon resolved to watch Desplein. He remembered the day and
hour when he had detected him going into Saint-Sulpice, and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: reason to be thankful to the gods who of their grace inspired you with
love for your Autolycus. Covetous of honour,[77] beyond all
controversy, must he be, who could endure so many toils and pains to
hear his name proclaimed[78] victor in the "pankration."
[77] See "Mem." II. iii. 16; "Isocr." 189 C, {ph. kai megalopsukhoi}.
[78] i.e. "by the public herald."
But what if the thought arose within him:[79] his it is not merely to
add lustre to himself and to his father, but that he has ability,
through help of manly virtue, to benefit his friends and to exalt his
fatherland, by trophies which he will set up against our enemies in
war,[80] whereby he will himself become the admired of all observers,
The Symposium |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: anger turned to friendliness. Tristan was quite gentle, put his
huge head up to the bars to let the stranger pat it, and seemed not
at all alarmed when the latter rang the bell.
The young man who had opened the door for the Councillor came out
from a wing of the castle. The peddler looked so frozen and yet so
venerable that the youth had not the heart to turn him away.
Possibly he was glad of a little diversion for his own sake.
"Who do you want to see?" he asked.
"I want to speak to the maid, the one who attended your dead
mistress."
"Oh, then you know -?"
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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 The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: of almost supernatural insight, that apostles, leaders of
crowds--men, in a word, of genuine and strong convictions--exert
a far greater force than men who deny, who criticise, or who are
indifferent, but it must not be forgotten that, given the power
possessed at present by crowds, were a single opinion to acquire
sufficient prestige to enforce its general acceptance, it would
soon be endowed with so tyrannical a strength that everything
would have to bend before it, and the era of free discussion
would be closed for a long time. Crowds are occasionally
easy-going masters, as were Heliogabalus and Tiberius, but they
are also violently capricious. A civilisation, when the moment
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