| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: Komorn--"
"Was one of my first lodgers. It was there she made acquaintance with
an Italian, a handsome man, and rich, a political refugee, but one of
the lofty kind. You understand it didn't suit my purposes to have
intrigues going on in my house; still the man was so lovable, and so
unhappy because he couldn't make Madame Komorn like him, that at last
I took an interest in this particular love affair; which produced a
pot of money for madame, for she managed to get immense sums out of
that Italian. Well, would you believe that when--being just then in
great need--I asked her to assist me with a trifling little sum, she
refused me point-blank, and left my house, taking her lover with her,
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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 Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: This life, it says, is but a chain of sorrows. To multiply days is
only to multiply evil. These desires that urge us on are really
cause of all our woe. We think they are ourselves. We are
mistaken. They are all illusion, and we are victims of a mirage.
This personality, this sense of self, is a cruel deception and a
snare. Realize once the true soul behind it, devoid of attributes,
therefore without this capacity for suffering, an indivisible part
of the great impersonal soul of nature: then, and then only, will
you have found happiness in the blissful quiescence of Nirvana.
With a certain poetic fitness, misery and impersonality were both
present in the occasion that gave the belief birth. Many have
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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 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: time to find out. So I touched a button and set fifty
electric suns aflame on the top of our precipice.
Land, what a sight! We were enclosed in three
walls of dead men! All the other fences were pretty
nearly filled with the living, who were stealthily work-
ing their way forward through the wires. The sudden
glare paralyzed this host, petrified them, you may say,
with astonishment; there was just one instant for me
to utilize their immobility in, and I didn't lose the
chance. You see, in another instant they would have
recovered their faculties, then they'd have burst into a
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
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 Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: large eyes--'looking more like a fish than anything else,'
Alice thought.
`Of course you agree to have a battle?' Tweedledum said in a
calmer tone.
`I suppose so,' the other sulkily replied, as he crawled out of
the umbrella: `only SHE must help us to dress up, you know.'
So the two brothers went off hand-in-hand into the wood, and
returned in a minute with their arms full of things--such as
bolsters, blankets, hearth-rugs, table-cloths, dish-covers and
coal-scuttles. `I hope you're a good hand at pinning and tying
strings?' Tweedledum remarked. `Every one of these things has
Through the Looking-Glass |
