| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: fighting, regarded as a free lance rather than as a great leader,
crushed by the necessity of earning his daily bread, which hindered
him from gaining ground, in despair at the influence exerted by money
over mind, and given over to dire poverty, buried himself in a garret,
to make thirty sous a day, the sum strictly answering to his needs.
Meditation had leveled a desert all round him. He read the papers to
be informed of what was going on. Pozzo di Borgo had once lived like
this for some time.
Marcas, no doubt, was planning a serious attack, accustoming himself
to dissimulation, and punishing himself for his blunders by
Pythagorean muteness. But he did not tell us the reasons for his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: [Partridge's reply]
'Squire Bickerstaff detected; or, the astrological impostor
convicted;
by John Partridge, student in physick and astrology.
It is hard, my dear countrymen of these united nations, it is
very hard that a Briton born, a Protestant astrologer, a man of
revolution principles, an assertor of the liberty and property of
the people, should cry out, in vain, for justice against a
Frenchman, a Papist, an illiterate pretender to science; that
would blast my reputation, most inhumanly bury me alive, and
defraud my native country of those services, that, in my double
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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 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: 106. By means of music the very passions enjoy themselves.
107. A sign of strong character, when once the resolution has
been taken, to shut the ear even to the best counter-arguments.
Occasionally, therefore, a will to stupidity.
108. There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral
interpretation of phenomena.
109. The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he
extenuates and maligns it.
110. The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to
turn the beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of
the doer.
Beyond Good and Evil |
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 Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Fair is her cottage in its place,
Where yon broad water sweetly slowly glides.
It sees itself from thatch to base
Dream in the sliding tides.
And fairer she, but ah how soon to die!
Her quiet dream of life this hour may cease.
Her peaceful being slowly passes by
To some more perfect peace.
THE SAILOR BOY.
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He rose at dawn and, fired with hope,
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