| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Koran: shall say, 'Praise belongs to God, who has removed from us our
grief; verily, our Lord is forgiving, grateful! who has made us alight
in an enduring abode of His grace, wherein no toil shall touch us, and
there shall touch us no fatigue.'
But those who misbelieve, for them is the fire of hell; it shall not
be decreed for them to die, nor shall aught of the torment be
lightened from them; thus do we reward every misbeliever; and they
shall shriek therein, 'O our Lord! bring us forth, and we will do
right, not what we used to do!'-'Did we not let you grow old enough
for every one who would be mindful to be mindful? and there came to
you a warner!-So taste it, for the unjust shall have none to help!'
The Koran |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: there was something about life insurance mixed
up with it, too.
The Occidentals are so apt to miss the spiritual
sweetness of the Oriental, don't you think?
We are -- all but the Leaders of Thought, and a
little group, here and there -- so commonplace.
Don't you LOATHE the commonplace?
Not loathe, really, of course -- because the har-
monious mind does not let itself be disturbed.
The harmonious mind realizes that dirt is only
useful matter in the wrong place, as Tennyson sings
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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 Poems by T. S. Eliot: Passed seaward with the passing bell
Slowly: the God Hercules
Had left him, that had loved him well.
The horses, under the axletree
Beat up the dawn from Istria
With even feet. Her shuttered barge
Burned on the water all the day.
But this or such was Bleistein's way:
A saggy bending of the knees
And elbows, with the palms turned out,
Chicago Semite Viennese.
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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 A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: animal into their stables that has not a pedigree. The more the
impious--as they are thought--come to understand a household of
bigots, the more they perceive that everything is stamped with an
indescribable squalor; they find there, at the same time, an
appearance of avarice and mystery, as in a miser's home, and the dank
scent of cold incense which gives a chill to the stale atmosphere of a
chapel. This methodical meanness, this narrowness of thought, which is
visible in every detail, can only be expressed by one word--Bigotry.
In these sinister and pitiless houses Bigotry is written on the
furniture, the prints, the pictures; speech is bigoted, the silence is
bigoted, the faces are those of bigots. The transformation of men and
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