| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: and may be truly regarded as hymns of praise composed in honour of you who
have conquered and won such a love; but if he slips away from you, the more
you have praised him, the more ridiculous you will look at having lost this
fairest and best of blessings; and therefore the wise lover does not praise
his beloved until he has won him, because he is afraid of accidents. There
is also another danger; the fair, when any one praises or magnifies them,
are filled with the spirit of pride and vain-glory. Do you not agree with
me?
Yes, he said.
And the more vain-glorious they are, the more difficult is the capture of
them?
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: gregarious animals; our ancestors have been such for countless ages.
We cannot help looking out on the world as gregarious animals do; we
see it in terms of humanity and of fellowship. Students of animals
under domestication have shown us how the habits of a gregarious
creature, taken away from his kind, are shaped in a thousand details
by reference to the lost pack which is no longer there--the pack
which a dog tries to smell his way back to all the time he is out
walking, the pack he calls to for help when danger threatens. It is
a strange and touching thing, this eternal hunger of the gregarious
animal for the herd of friends who are not there. And it may be, it
may very possibly be, that, in the matter of this Friend behind
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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 The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: slaughter, and that the next day, after it had resumed its original
shape and gone away, there were seven hundred bodies of the slain
which the villagers had to bury. He does not say if any of the
wounded recovered. In the time of Henry III, of England, a law was
made which prescribed the death penalty for "Kyllynge, wowndynge, or
mamynge" a fairy, and it was universally respected.
FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks
without knowledge, of things without parallel.
FAMOUS, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
Done to a turn on the iron, behold
Him who to be famous aspired.
The Devil's Dictionary |
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 Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: opened my window, and in the dawning light I saw a travelling carriage
before the door of the inn, the postilion in the saddle, and Jacques
Bricheteau talking to some one who was seated in the vehicle. Deciding
quickly on my action, I ran rapidly downstairs; but before I reached
the bottom I heard the roll of wheels and the cracking of the
postilion's whip. At the foot of the staircase I came face to face
with Jacques Bricheteau. Without seeming embarrassed, in fact with the
most natural air in the world, he said to me,--
"What! my dear ward already up?"
"Of course; the least I could do was to say farewell to my excellent
father."
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