The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: present itself with the irresistible authority of the absolute truth;
and then, those who govern under the superintendence of the French
idea will have to make this choice; the children of France or the
gamins of Paris; flames in the light or will-o'-the-wisps in the gloom.
The gamin expresses Paris, and Paris expresses the world.
For Paris is a total. Paris is the ceiling of the human race.
The whole of this prodigious city is a foreshortening of dead manners
and living manners. He who sees Paris thinks he sees the bottom of all
history with heaven and constellations in the intervals. Paris has
a capital, the Town-Hall, a Parthenon, Notre-Dame, a Mount Aventine,
the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, an Asinarium, the Sorbonne, a Pantheon,
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: all, ought in principle to be blind and to take no cognisance of
particular cases. Inaccessible to pity, and heeding nothing but
the text of the law, the judge in his professional severity would
visit with the same penalty the burglar guilty of murder and the
wretched girl whom poverty and her abandonment by her seducer
have driven to infanticide. The jury, on the other hand,
instinctively feels that the seduced girl is much less guilty
than the seducer, who, however, is not touched by the law, and
that she deserves every indulgence.
[25] The magistracy is, in point of fact, the only administration
whose acts are under no control. In spite of all its
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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 King James Bible: silver.
JDG 16:6 And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy
great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict
thee.
JDG 16:7 And Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven green
withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another
man.
JDG 16:8 Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven
green withs which had not been dried, and she bound him with them.
JDG 16:9 Now there were men lying in wait, abiding with her in the
chamber. And she said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson.
King James Bible |
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 Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: "Oh, no, no, I am positive of that. John could not bear to hear
the names even of the people he had known before his misfortune.
Still, I do remember his once having spoken of a man, a German he
had met in Chicago and rather taken a fancy to, and who had also
returned to Germany."
"Could this possibly have been the man to whom the letter is
addressed?"
"No, no. This friend of John's was not married; I remember his
saying that. And he lived in Germany somewhere - let me think - yes,
in Frankfort-on-Main."
"And do you remember the man's name?"
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