| 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: not so as to be hurtful? And the same of thirst and the other desires,--
that they will remain, but will not be evil because evil has perished? Or
rather shall I say, that to ask what either will be then or will not be is
ridiculous, for who knows? This we do know, that in our present condition
hunger may injure us, and may also benefit us:--Is not that true?
Yes.
And in like manner thirst or any similar desire may sometimes be a good and
sometimes an evil to us, and sometimes neither one nor the other?
To be sure.
But is there any reason why, because evil perishes, that which is not evil
should perish with it?
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: as on the expenses of transit; and every penny inherited from his
mother had been spent in the course of a three-years' travel in Italy
after the residence in Rome came to an end. He had seen Venice, Milan,
Florence, Bologna, and Naples leisurely, as he wished to see them, as
a dreamer of dreams, and a philosopher; careless of the future, for an
artist looks to his talent for support as the /fille de joie/ counts
upon her beauty.
All through those splendid years of travel Pons was as happy as was
possible to a man with a great soul, a sensitive nature, and a face so
ugly that any "success with the fair" (to use the stereotyped formula
of 1809) was out of the question; the realities of life always fell
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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 Exiles by Honore de Balzac: she recalled the strange beauty of that pink-and-white face, and saw
in memory the fine hair and moist brilliancy of those eyes, she
believed that they were indeed the artifices of the Devil. She
remembered that for days at a time she had never heard the slightest
sound from either room. Where were the strangers during all those
hours?
Suddenly the most singular circumstances recurred to her mind. She was
completely overmastered by fear, and could even discern witchcraft in
the rich lady's interest in the young Godefroid, a poor orphan who had
come from Flanders to study at the University of Paris. She hastily
put her hand into one of her pockets, pulled out four livres of
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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 Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: windowless walls; to the left, at a little distance, I can see a
slender church spire, greenish in colour, probably covered with
copper, and before the church there are two poplar trees of
different heights.
"Another day has passed, a day of torturing fear! Am I really
insane? I know that I see queer things. This morning I looked
towards the window and I saw a parrot sitting there! I saw it quite
plainly. It ruffled up its red and green feathers and stared at me.
I stared back at it and suddenly it was gone. I shivered. Finally
I pulled myself together and went to the window. There was no bird
outside nor was there a trace of any in the snow on the window sill.
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