| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: quarries, situated, as all the world knows, at Le Gros-Caillou.
This was a success, such success as is won in Paris, that is to say,
stupendous success, that crushes those whose shoulders and loins are
not strong enough to bear it--as, be it said, not unfrequently is the
case. Count Wenceslas Steinbock was written about in all the
newspapers and reviews without his having the least suspicion of it,
any more than had Mademoiselle Fischer. Every day, as soon as Lisbeth
had gone out to dinner, Wenceslas went to the Baroness' and spent an
hour or two there, excepting on the evenings when Lisbeth dined with
the Hulots.
This state of things lasted for several days.
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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 Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: Troubert and Monsieur l'Abbe Chapeloud. The Abbe Troubert still lived.
The Abbe Chapeloud was dead; and Birotteau had stepped into his place.
The late Abbe Chapeloud, in life a canon of Saint-Gatien, had been an
intimate friend of the Abbe Birotteau. Every time that the latter paid
a visit to the canon he had constantly admired the apartment, the
furniture and the library. Out of this admiration grew the desire to
possess these beautiful things. It had been impossible for the Abbe
Birotteau to stifle this desire; though it often made him suffer
terribly when he reflected that the death of his best friend could
alone satisfy his secret covetousness, which increased as time went
on. The Abbe Chapeloud and his friend Birotteau were not rich. Both
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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 Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: loves you so much, how comes it he trusts you so little that you must
learn any matter of weight by listening at my door, as I found you doing
the other day?"
"Because you teach him not to do so, O Nandie. Because you are ever
telling him not to consult with me, since she who has betrayed one
husband may betray another. Because you make him believe my place is
that of his toy, not that of his companion, and this although I am
cleverer than you and all your House tied into one bundle, as you may
find out some day."
"Yes," answered Nandie, quite undisturbed, "I do teach him these things,
and I am glad that in this matter Saduko has a thinking head and listens
Child of Storm |
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 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: to this century, namely, in the form of Schopenhauer's
philosophy; whoever, with an Asiatic and super-Asiatic eye, has
actually looked inside, and into the most world-renouncing of all
possible modes of thought--beyond good and evil, and no longer
like Buddha and Schopenhauer, under the dominion and delusion of
morality,--whoever has done this, has perhaps just thereby,
without really desiring it, opened his eyes to behold the
opposite ideal: the ideal of the most world-approving, exuberant,
and vivacious man, who has not only learnt to compromise and
arrange with that which was and is, but wishes to have it again
AS IT WAS AND IS, for all eternity, insatiably calling out de
Beyond Good and Evil |
