| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: walked slowly to her easel, glancing carelessly at the drawings and
paintings on her way, and bidding good-morning to each of the young
girls of the first group, not observing the unusual curiosity excited
by her presence. She was like a queen in the midst of her court; she
paid no attention to the profound silence that reigned among the
patricians, and passed before their camp without pronouncing a single
word. Her absorption seemed so great that she sat down before her
easel, opened her color-box, took up her brushes, drew on her brown
sleeves, arranged her apron, looked at her picture, examined her
palette, without, apparently, thinking of what she was doing. All
heads in the group of the bourgeoises were turned toward her. If the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: perceptions hath he, like the people, and changeable humours.
To upset--that meaneth with him to prove. To drive mad--that meaneth with
him to convince. And blood is counted by him as the best of all arguments.
A truth which only glideth into fine ears, he calleth falsehood and
trumpery. Verily, he believeth only in Gods that make a great noise in the
world!
Full of clattering buffoons is the market-place,--and the people glory in
their great men! These are for them the masters of the hour.
But the hour presseth them; so they press thee. And also from thee they
want Yea or Nay. Alas! thou wouldst set thy chair betwixt For and Against?
On account of those absolute and impatient ones, be not jealous, thou lover
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: had all the puppy airs that belong to that time of life - that
turning-point when a person has got over being a boy and yet ain't
quite a man exactly. If it had been anywhere else but in heaven, I
would have given him a piece of my mind. Well, anyway, Billings
had the grandest reception that has been seen in thousands of
centuries, and I think it will have a good effect. His name will
be carried pretty far, and it will make our system talked about,
and maybe our world, too, and raise us in the respect of the
general public of heaven. Why, look here - Shakespeare walked
backwards before that tailor from Tennessee, and scattered flowers
for him to walk on, and Homer stood behind his chair and waited on
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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 Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: Jacquerie; that defeat is burnt in upon their brain. They have long
forgotten the facts which have now passed into the condition of an
instinctive idea. That idea is bred in the peasant blood, just as the
idea of superiority was once bred in noble blood. The revolution of
1789 was the retaliation of the vanquished. The peasants then set foot
in possession of the soil which the feudal law had denied them for
over twelve hundred years. Hence their desire for land, which they now
cut up among themselves until actually they divide a furrow into two
parts; which, by the bye, often hinders or prevents the collection of
taxes, for the value of such fractions of property is not sufficient
to pay the legal costs of recovering them."
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