| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: reserve should give him no opening and should have the effect of a
magnanimity greater even than his own.
He challenged himself, denounced himself, asked himself if he were
in love with her that he should care so much what adventures she
had had. He had never for a moment allowed he was in love with
her; therefore nothing could have surprised him more than to
discover he was jealous. What but jealousy could give a man that
sore contentious wish for the detail of what would make him suffer?
Well enough he knew indeed that he should never have it from the
only person who to-day could give it to him. She let him press her
with his sombre eyes, only smiling at him with an exquisite mercy
|
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: the seats of this God.
They called God that which opposed and afflicted them: and verily, there
was much hero-spirit in their worship!
And they knew not how to love their God otherwise than by nailing men to
the cross!
As corpses they thought to live; in black draped they their corpses; even
in their talk do I still feel the evil flavour of charnel-houses.
And he who liveth nigh unto them liveth nigh unto black pools, wherein the
toad singeth his song with sweet gravity.
Better songs would they have to sing, for me to believe in their Saviour:
more like saved ones would his disciples have to appear unto me!
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 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: cut across the lawn toward home. I glanced back once. A wafer of a moon
was shining over Gatsby's house, making the night fine as before, and
surviving the laughter and the sound of his still glowing garden. A
sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great
doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who
stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell.
Reading over what I have written so far, I see I have given the
impression that the events of three nights several weeks apart were all
that absorbed me. On the contrary, they were merely casual events in a
crowded summer, and, until much later, they absorbed me infinitely less
than my personal affairs.
The Great Gatsby |
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 Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum: be very uncomfortable and unhappy. But you are a mortal
girl, Dorothy, and if your Magic Belt protected you
from death you would have to lie forever at the bottom
of the lake."
"No, I'd rather die quickly," asserted the little
girl. "But there are doors in the basement that open --
to let out the bridges and the boats -- and that would
not flood the dome, you know."
"Those doors open by a magic word, and only Coo-ee-oh
knows the word that must be uttered," said Lady Aurex.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Dorothy, "that dreadful Queen's
Glinda of Oz |
