| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: for his shame, for, after all, a crown, look you, is made of gold. The
very sappers and miners who knew how to read became great nobles in
the same way. And I who am telling you all this have seen in Paris
eleven kings and a crowd of princes all round about Napoleon, like
rays about the sun! Keep this well in your minds, that as every
soldier stood a chance of having a throne of his own (provided he
showed himself worthy of it), a corporal of the Guard was by way of
being a sight to see, and they gaped at him as he went by; for every
one came by his share after a victory, it was made perfectly clear in
the bulletin. And what battles they were! Austerlitz, where the army
was manoeuvred as if it had been a review; Eylau, where the Russians
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: accompanied them, and while they remained there, she was
too well convinced of the impossibility of engaging Lucy's
attention to attempt it. They quitted it only with the
removal of the tea-things. The card-table was then placed,
and Elinor began to wonder at herself for having ever
entertained a hope of finding time for conversation
at the park. They all rose up in preparation for a round game.
"I am glad," said Lady Middleton to Lucy,
"you are not going to finish poor little Annamaria's
basket this evening; for I am sure it must hurt your
eyes to work filigree by candlelight. And we will make
Sense and Sensibility |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: of increase has disappeared; but even on this earth it was
certainly the primitive method. Among the lower animals,
up even to those first cousins of the vertebrated animals, the
Tunicates, the two processes occur side by side, but finally
the sexual method superseded its competitor altogether. On
Mars, however, just the reverse has apparently been the case.
It is worthy of remark that a certain speculative writer of
quasi-scientific repute, writing long before the Martian inva-
sion, did forecast for man a final structure not unlike the
actual Martian condition. His prophecy, I remember, appeared
in November or December, 1893, in a long-defunct publica-
War of the Worlds |
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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: bewigged and habited in scarlet, and in his day combining fame and
popularity, stood forth, like a taunt, among that company of
phantom appellations. It was then possible to leave behind us
something more explicit than these severe, monotonous and lying
epitaphs; and the thing left, the memory of a painted picture and
what we call the immortality of a name, was hardly more desirable
than mere oblivion. Even David Hume, as he lay composed beneath
that "circular idea," was fainter than a dream; and when the
housemaid, broom in hand, smiled and beckoned from the open window,
the fame of that bewigged philosopher melted like a raindrop in the
sea.
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