| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: and this upsets many systems; or the facts took place either in some
nerve centre, of which the name is yet to be discovered, where our
feelings dwell and move; or else in the cerebral centre, where ideas
are formed. This last hypothesis gives rise to some strange questions.
I walked, I saw, I heard. Motion is inconceivable but in space, sound
acts only at certain angles or on surfaces, color is caused only by
light. If, in the dark, with my eyes shut, I saw, in myself, colored
objects; if I heard sounds in the most perfect silence and without the
conditions requisite for the production of sound; if without stirring
I traversed wide tracts of space, there must be inner faculties
independent of the external laws of physics. Material nature must be
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: you understand? So when it is fine I walk out in the Champs-
Elysees, after finding out from their waiting-maids whether my
daughters mean to go out. I wait near the entrance; my heart
beats fast when the carriages begin to come; I admire them in
their dresses, and as they pass they give me a little smile, and
it seems as if everything was lighted up for me by a ray of
bright sunlight. I wait, for they always go back the same way,
and then I see them again; the fresh air has done them good and
brought color into their cheeks; all about me people say, 'What a
beautiful woman that is!' and it does my heart good to hear them.
"Are they not my own flesh and blood? I love the very horses that
Father Goriot |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: were presumably asleep inside.
"Good-by," said Olson. He reached in his pocket suggestively, but
Amory snorted, and, taking the girl's arm, turned away.
"Where did you tell the driver to go?" she asked as they whirled
along the dim street.
"The station."
"If that guy writes my mother"
"He won't. Nobody'll ever know about thisexcept our friends and
enemies."
Dawn was breaking over the sea.
"It's getting blue," she said.
This Side of Paradise |
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 Cratylus by Plato: that we are not presuming to enquire about them, but only about the names
which they usually bear. Let us begin with Hestia. What did he mean who
gave the name Hestia? 'That is a very difficult question.' O, my dear
Hermogenes, I believe that there was a power of philosophy and talk among
the first inventors of names, both in our own and in other languages; for
even in foreign words a principle is discernible. Hestia is the same with
esia, which is an old form of ousia, and means the first principle of
things: this agrees with the fact that to Hestia the first sacrifices are
offered. There is also another reading--osia, which implies that 'pushing'
(othoun) is the first principle of all things. And here I seem to discover
a delicate allusion to the flux of Heracleitus--that antediluvian
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