| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: the Dead Hand, and its cunning, which can make even St. Louis
sound mysterious!
In this booklet I get no information as to the commercial causes
of war, nor about the part which the clerical vote may have
played throughout Europe in supporting military systems. I do not
even find anything about the sacred cause of democracy, the
resolve of a self-governing people to put an end to feudal rule.
Instead I discover a soldier-boy who obeys and keeps silent, and
who, in his inmost heart, is in the grip of terrors both of body
and soul. Poor, pitiful soldier-boy, marking yourself with
crosses, performing genuflexions, mumbling magic formulas in the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: all her attention to her father, saying in secret--
"I am glad I have done being in love with him. I should not like a
man who is so soon discomposed by a hot morning. Harriet's sweet
easy temper will not mind it."
He was gone long enough to have had a very comfortable meal, and came
back all the better--grown quite cool--and, with good manners,
like himself--able to draw a chair close to them, take an interest
in their employment; and regret, in a reasonable way, that he
should be so late. He was not in his best spirits, but seemed
trying to improve them; and, at last, made himself talk nonsense
very agreeably. They were looking over views in Swisserland.
Emma |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: Mind without the possibility of ultimate triumph? Your statics declare
that two Forces thus pitted against each other are reciprocally
rendered null.
"Do you turn back, therefore, to the other side of the problem, and
say that God pre-existed, original, alone?
"I will not go over the preceding arguments (which here return in full
force) as to the severance of Eternity into two parts; nor the
questions raised by the progression or the immobility of the worlds;
let us look only at the difficulties inherent to this second theory.
If God pre-existed alone, the world must have emanated from Him;
Matter was therefore drawn from His essence; consequently Matter in
Seraphita |
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 Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: likewise D'Artagnan's vigilance.
On the evening of the day after the arrest of poor Bonacieux, as
Athos had just left D'Artagnan to report at M. de Treville's, as
nine o'clock had just struck, and as Planchet, who had not yet
made the bed, was beginning his task, a knocking was heard at the
street door. The door was instantly opened and shut; someone was
taken in the mousetrap.
D'Artagnan flew to his hole, laid himself down on the floor at
full length, and listened.
Cries were soon heard, and then moans, which someone appeared to
be endeavoring to stifle. There were no questions.
The Three Musketeers |
