| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: road traced out.
"This vagueness and uncertainty prevails in politics as well as in
science. In the order of nature means are simple, the end is grand
and marvelous; here in science as in government, the means are
stupendous, the end is mean. The force which in nature proceeds at
an equal pace, and of which the sum is constantly being added to
itself--the A + A from which everything is produced--is
destructive in society. Politics, at the present time, place human
forces in antagonism to neutralize each other, instead of
combining them to promote their action to some definite end.
"Looking at Europe alone, from Caesar to Constantine, from the
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Koran: you to have Islam for a religion. But he who is forced by hunger,
not inclined wilfully to sin, verily, God is forgiving, compassionate.
They will ask thee what is lawful for them? say, 'Lawful for you are
good things and what ye have taught beasts of prey (to catch),
training them like dogs;- ye teach them as God taught you;- so eat
of what they catch for you, and mention the name of God over it, and
fear God, for verily, God is swift in reckoning up.'
Lawful for you to-day are good things, and the food of those to whom
the Book has been given is lawful for you, and your food is lawful for
them; and chaste women of those who believe, and chaste women of those
to whom the Book has been given before you,- when you have given
The Koran |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: sizzled. Good night."
Far worse than the controlled, steady drinker is the solitary
drinker, and it was this that Daylight was developing into. He
rarely drank sociably any more, but in his own room, by himself.
Returning weary from each day's unremitting effort, he drugged
himself to sleep, knowing that on the morrow he would rise up
with a dry and burning mouth and repeat the program.
But the country did not recover with its wonted elasticity.
Money did not become freer, though the casual reader of
Daylight's newspapers, as well as of all the other owned and
subsidised newspapers in the country, could only have concluded
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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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: conclude with an opinion of my own, even though I cannot quote a
sentence of his to back it.
The one person of all the world in whom talkability is most
desirable, and talkativeness least endurable, is a wife.
A WILD STRAWBERRY
"Such is the story of the Boblink; once spiritual, musical, admired,
the joy of the meadows, and the favourite bird of spring; finally a
gross little sensualist who expiates his sensuality in the larder.
His story contains a moral, worthy the attention of all little birds
and little boys; warning them to keep to those refined and
intellectual pursuits which raised him to so high a pitch of
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