| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell
her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman.
All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her;
he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain
light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree
of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward.
"We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean.
At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others.
Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead.
Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so."
Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room;
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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 Message by Honore de Balzac: passed that way. At last we turned back, and under the walls of
some outbuildings I heard a smothered, wailing cry, so stifled
that it was scarcely audible. The sound seemed to come from a
place that might have been a granary. I went in at all risks, and
there we found Juliette. With the instinct of despair, she had
buried herself deep in the hay, hiding her face in it to deaden
those dreadful cries--pudency even stronger than grief. She was
sobbing and crying like a child, but there was a more poignant,
more piteous sound in the sobs. There was nothing left in the
world for her. The maid pulled the hay from her, her mistress
submitting with the supine listlessness of a dying animal. The
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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 A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: by the said Mlle. Chocardelle. The /quart d'heure de Rabelais/
arrived; the Count had no money. So the first bill of three thousand
francs was met by the amiable coach-builder; that old scoundrel
Denisart having recommended him to secure himself with a mortgage on
the reading-room.
" 'For my own part,' said Denisart, 'I have seen pretty doings from
pretty women. So in all cases, even when I have lost my head, I am
always on my guard with a woman. There is this creature, for instance;
I am madly in love with her; but this is not her furniture; no, it
belongs to me. The lease is taken out in my name.'
"You know Maxime! He thought the coach-builder uncommonly green.
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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 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: for all that feels, lives, and suffers (down to the very animals,
up even to "God"--the extravagance of "sympathy for God" belongs
to a democratic age); altogether at one in the cry and impatience
of their sympathy, in their deadly hatred of suffering generally,
in their almost feminine incapacity for witnessing it or ALLOWING
it; at one in their involuntary beglooming and heart-softening,
under the spell of which Europe seems to be threatened with a new
Buddhism; at one in their belief in the morality of MUTUAL
sympathy, as though it were morality in itself, the climax, the
ATTAINED climax of mankind, the sole hope of the future, the
consolation of the present, the great discharge from all the
Beyond Good and Evil |
