| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: the past and in the future, emphasizing the present.
But did he epitomize all science in his own person as Hippocrates
did and Galen and Aristotle? Did he guide a whole school towards
new worlds? No. Though it is impossible to deny that this
persistent observer of human chemistry possessed that antique
science of the Mages, that is to say, knowledge of the elements
in fusion, the causes of life, life antecedent to life, and what
it must be in its incubation or ever it IS, it must be confessed
that, unfortunately, everything in him was purely personal.
Isolated during his life by his egoism, that egoism is now
suicidal of his glory. On his tomb there is no proclaiming statue
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: myself to bring you here and kiss you."
Thereupon he gallantly took her hands and covered them with kisses,
whispering to her little endearments and superficial words of
affection which made her quite pleased and contented.
Then, fatigued with the dance and all the ceremonies, she settled down
to her slumbers, saying to the seneschal--
"I will take care tomorrow that you shall not sin," and she left the
old man quite smitten with her white beauty, amorous of her delicate
nature, and as embarrassed to know how he should be able to keep her
in her innocence as to explain why oxen chew their food twice over.
Although he did not augur to himself any good therefrom, it inflamed
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: 'the life or the decorations of the thirteenth century back again.'
'The circumstances with which you must surround your workmen are
those' of modern American life, 'because the designs you have now
to ask for from your workmen are such as will make modern' American
'life beautiful.' The art we want is the art based on all the
inventions of modern civilisation, and to suit all the needs of
nineteenth-century life.
Do you think, for instance, that we object to machinery? I tell
you we reverence it; we reverence it when it does its proper work,
when it relieves man from ignoble and soulless labour, not when it
seeks to do that which is valuable only when wrought by the hands
|
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 Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum: thinking. Then he said:
"Most noble Private Soldier, I must inform you
that by the laws of our country anyone who comes
through the Forbidden Tube must be tortured for
nine days and ten nights and then thrown back into
the Tube. But it is wise to disregard laws when
they conflict with justice, and it seems that you
and your followers did not disobey our laws
willingly, being forced into the Tube by Ruggedo.
Therefore the Nome King is alone to blame, and he
alone must be punished."
Tik-Tok of Oz |
