| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: practical account, or, on the contrary, as something with which they
were to be seriously concerned some day, and from which they were to
reap advantage? Do human beings in general attain to well-tempered
manhood by a course of idling, or by carefully attending to what will
be of use? Which will help a man the more to grow in justice and
uprightness, to be up and doing, or to sit with folded hands revolving
the ways and means of existence? As things now stand, if I am not
mistaken, there is no love lost between you. You cannot help feeling
that they are costly to you, and they must see that you find them a
burthen? This is a perilous state of affairs, in which hatred and
bitterness have every prospect of increasing, whilst the pre-existing
The Memorabilia |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: that cause a genius, chained to an official desk,
must die or go mad, just as it often happens that
a man of powerful constitution, and at the same
time of sedentary life and simple habits, dies of
an apoplectic stroke.
Passions are naught but ideas in their first
development; they are an attribute of the youth
of the heart, and foolish is he who thinks that he
will be agitated by them all his life. Many quiet
rivers begin their course as noisy waterfalls, and
there is not a single stream which will leap or
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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 Parmenides by Plato: to him the appearance of Parmenides and Zeno; they had come to Athens at
the great Panathenaea, the former being at the time about sixty-five years
old, aged but well-favoured--Zeno, who was said to have been beloved of
Parmenides in the days of his youth, about forty, and very good-looking:--
that they lodged with Pythodorus at the Ceramicus outside the wall, whither
Socrates, then a very young man, came to see them: Zeno was reading one of
his theses, which he had nearly finished, when Pythodorus entered with
Parmenides and Aristoteles, who was afterwards one of the Thirty. When the
recitation was completed, Socrates requested that the first thesis of the
treatise might be read again.'
'You mean, Zeno,' said Socrates, 'to argue that being, if it is many, must
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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 Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: the rankest and most contemptible hypocrite of all. It was this
- the realization of this truth kept me awake all night. For two
years I have persecuted by every means in my power... M. de La Tour
d'Azyr."
He paused before uttering the name, paused as if hesitating how to
speak of him.
"And in those two years I have deceived myself as to the motive
that was spurring me. He spoke of me last night as the evil genius
of his life, and himself he recognized the justice of this. It may
be that he was right, and because of that it is probable that even
had he not killed Philippe de Vilmorin, things would still have
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