| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: place, so that two streams of human beings flowed in and out,
compressed within the limits of the gateway.
Vitellius demanded the reason for the assembling of so great a throng.
Antipas explained that they had been invited to come to a feast in
celebration of his birthday; and he pointed to several men who,
leaning against the battlements, were hauling up immense basket-loads
of food, fruits, vegetables, antelopes, and storks; large fish, of a
brilliant shade of blue; grapes, melons, and pyramids of pomegranates.
At this sight, Aulus left the courtyard and hastened to the kitchens,
led by his taste for gormandizing, which later became the amazement of
the world.
Herodias |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: embracing her always as though he would see if such a lovely article
would wear away: but he wore himself out first, poor man, seeing that
he eventually died from excess of love. Although she took care to
grant her favours only to the best and noblest in the court, and that
such occasions were rare as miracles, there were not wanting those
among her enemies and rivals who declared that for 10,000 crowns a
simple gentleman might taste the pleasures of his sovereign, which was
false above all falseness, for when her lord taxed her with it, did
she not reply, "Abominable wretches! Curse the devils who put this
idea in your head! I never yet did have man who spent less than 30,000
crowns upon me."
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: loadstone; but none exists. In the cherry-trees alone lies the
attraction.
For one week out of the fifty-two the cherry-tree stands thus
glorified, a vision of beauty prolonged somewhat by the want of
synchronousness of the different kinds. Then the petals fall.
What was a nuptial veil becomes a winding-sheet, covering the sod as
with winter's winding-sheet of snow, destined itself to disappear,
and the tree is nothing but a common cherry-tree once more.
But flowers are by no means over because the cherry blossoms are
past. A brief space, and the same crowds that flocked to the cherry
turn to the wistaria. Gardens are devoted to the plants, and the
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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 Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: d'Espard himself lent occasion. Very laudable motives had made him
determine never to be on visiting terms with any of the other tenants
in the house. In undertaking to educate his boys he wished to keep
them from all contact with strangers. Perhaps, too, he wished to avoid
the intrusion of neighbors.
In a man of his rank, at a time when the Quartier Latin was distracted
by Liberalism, such conduct was sure to rouse in opposition a host of
petty passions, of feelings whose folly is only to be measured by
their meanness, the outcome of porters' gossip and malevolent tattle
from door to door, all unknown to M. d'Espard and his retainers. His
man-servant was stigmatized as a Jesuit, his cook as a sly fox; the
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