| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: a miracle on an old man worth ten millions, whose wife and
daughter are dead; who has only some nephews, themselves rich,
and who gives her all she wants without asking anything in
return. But she can not ask him for more than seventy thousand
francs a year; and I am sure that if she did ask for more,
despite his health and the affection he has for her he would not
give it to her.
"All the young men of twenty or thirty thousand francs a year at
Paris, that is to say, men who have only just enough to live on
in the society in which they mix, know perfectly well, when they
are the lovers of a woman like Marguerite, that she could not so
Camille |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: his wonted bearing, thinks of his worldly interests, obeys some envoy
of death and of oblivion whose dusky mantle covers like a pall an
ancient Humanity of which the moderns retain no memory. Man never
pauses; he goes his round, he vegetates until the appointed day when
his Axe falls. If this wave force, this pressure of bitter waters
prevents all progress, no doubt it also warns of death. Spirits
prepared by faith among the higher souls of earth can alone perceive
the mystic ladder of Jacob.
After listening to Seraphita's answer in which (being earnestly
questioned) she unrolled before their eyes a Divine Perspective,--as
an organ fills a church with sonorous sound and reveals a musical
Seraphita |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: Lombroso, in the second volume of the fourth edition of his work,
after his descriptive analysis of the chief forms of mental
alienation. As a matter of fact, not only are the organic, and
especially the psychological, characteristics of criminal madmen
sometimes identical with and sometimes opposed to those of born
and occasional criminals, but these very characteristics vary
considerably between the different forms of mental alienation, in
spite of the identity of the crime committed.
It is further to be observed, in respect of criminal madmen, that
this category also includes all the intermediary types between
complete madness and a rational condition, who remain in what
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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 Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: "Oh, yes, you're Cardillac, aren't you? And now tell us about the
smith's swineherd."
"You mean Janos? Oh, he was a stupid lout," answered Varna
scornfully.
"He had cast an eye on the beautiful Julcsi, Gyuri's mistress, so
of course I had to kill him."
"Did you do that alone?"
"No, Gyuri helped me."
"Why did you cut the bridge supports?"
"Because I enjoy giving people riddles, as I told you. But Gyuri
forbade me to kill people uselessly. I liked the chance of getting
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