| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: smile.
"Go away, Malicorne; really, you are exceedingly
indiscreet." At this remark Malicorne bit his lips and
retired a few steps, without making any reply. His smile,
however, changed its expression, and from its former
frankness, became mocking in its expression.
"You wished for an explanation, M. Raoul?" inquired
Montalais.
"It is surely worth one, I think; Mademoiselle de la
Valliere a maid of honor to Madame!"
"Why should not she be a maid of honor, as well as myself?"
Ten Years Later |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: By Spanish troops, led by the Duke of Alva.
MONK.
But still for me 't is the Celestial City,
And I would see it once before I die.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Each one must bear his cross.
MONK.
Were it a cross
That had been laid upon me, I could bear it,
Or fall with it. It is a crucifix;
I am nailed hand and foot, and I am dying!
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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 Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: formula of Heaven. Above all is God; He is the Unit.
After going in to see Louis once more, I took leave of his wife and
went home, lost in ideas so adverse to social life that, in spite of a
promise to return to Villenoix, I did not go.
The sight of Louis had had some mysteriously sinister influence over
me. I was afraid to place myself again in that heavy atmosphere, where
ecstasy was contagious. Any man would have felt, as I did, a longing
to throw himself into the infinite, just as one soldier after another
killed himself in a certain sentry box where one had committed suicide
in the camp at Boulogne. It is a known fact that Napoleon was obliged
to have the hut burned which had harbored an idea that had become a
Louis Lambert |
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 Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: as touching "the substance of the act." For, although nature
is able in a manner to do the outward work, (for it is able to
keep the hands from theft and murder,) yet it cannot produce
the inward motions, such as the fear of God, trust in God,
chastity, patience, etc.
Article XIX: Of the Cause of Sin.
Of the Cause of Sin they teach that, although God does create
and preserve nature, yet the cause of sin is the will of the
wicked, that is, of the devil and ungodly men; which will,
unaided of God, turns itself from God, as Christ says John 8,
44: When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own.
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