| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: still beneath reality. Who can describe that purely physical
exhaustion in which we are left by the abuse of a dream of pleasure,
leaving the soul still eternally craving, and the spirit in clear
possession of its faculties?
"But I am weary of this torment, which is that of Tantalus. This is my
last night on earth. After one final effort, our Mother shall have her
child again--the Adriatic will silence my last sigh--"
"Are you idiotic?" cried Vendramin. "No; you are mad; for madness, the
crisis we despise, is the memory of an antecedent condition acting on
our present state of being. The genius of my dreams has taught me
that, and much else! You want to make one of the Duchess and la Tinti;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: Madame Aubain wished to make an accomplished girl of her daughter; and
as Guyot could not teach English or music, she decided to send her to
the Ursulines at Honfleur.
The child made no objection, but Felicite sighed and thought Madame
was heartless. Then, she thought that perhaps her mistress was right,
as these things were beyond her sphere. Finally, one day, an old
fiacre stopped in front of the door and a nun stepped out. Felicite
put Virginia's luggage on top of the carriage, gave the coachman some
instructions, and smuggled six jars of jam, a dozen pears and a bunch
of violets under the seat.
At the last minute, Virginia had a fit of sobbing; she embraced her
A Simple Soul |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: light of truth, to direct my mind upward to the very knowledge of the
things which are, and to open the doors of my soul to receive the divine
guidance of Plato, and, having directed my knowledge into the very
brightness of being, to withdraw me from the various forms of opinion,
from the apparent wisdom, from the wandering about things which do not
exist, by that purest intellectual exercise about the things which do
exist, whereby alone the eye of the soul is nourished and brightened, as
Socrates says in the Phaedrus; and that the Noetic Gods will give to me
the perfect reason, and the Noeric Gods the power which leads up to
this, and that the rulers of the Universe above the heaven will impart
to me an energy unshaken by material notions and emancipated from them,
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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 Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: "Skip all that!" cried the Bellman in haste.
"If it once becomes dark, there's no chance of a Snark--
We have hardly a minute to waste!"
"I skip forty years," said the Baker, in tears,
"And proceed without further remark
To the day when you took me aboard of your ship
To help you in hunting the Snark.
"A dear uncle of mine (after whom I was named)
Remarked, when I bade him farewell--"
"Oh, skip your dear uncle!" the Bellman exclaimed,
As he angrily tingled his bell.
The Hunting of the Snark |
