| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: fools to sell for a hundred sous what is worth a hundred francs. If
you met a child who did not know the value of a louis, wouldn't you
feel bound to tell him of it? Your affair looks to me like a theft, be
it said without offence."
"Good God! how queer women are sometimes, and how they mix up ideas!
If Roguin were not in this business, you would say to me: 'Look here,
Cesar, you are going into a thing without Roguin; therefore it is
worth nothing.' But to-day he is in it, as security, and you tell
me--"
"No, that is a Monsieur Claparon."
"But a notary cannot put his own name into a speculation."
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: LXXXI
"Epictetus, I have often come desiring to hear you speak,
and you have never given me any answer; now if possible, I
entreat you, say something to me."
"Is there, do you think," replied Epictetus, "an art of
speaking as of other things, if it is to be done skilfully and
with profit to the hearer?"
"Yes."
"And are all profited by what they hear, or only some among
them? So that it seems there is an art of hearing as well as of
speaking. . . . To make a statue needs skill: to view a statue
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: of faith; which, however, cannot be understood, if men think
that they merit grace by observances of their own choice.
Thus, therefore, they have taught that by the observance of
human traditions we cannot merit grace or be justified, and
hence we must not think such observances necessary acts of
worship. They add hereunto testimonies of Scripture. Christ,
Matt. 15, 3, defends the Apostles who had not observed the
usual tradition, which, however, evidently pertains to a
matter not unlawful, but indifferent, and to have a certain
affinity with the purifications of the Law, and says, 9: In
vain do they worship Me with the commandments of men. He,
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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 Human Drift by Jack London: alternately thickening and thinning before the face of the moon,
but never exposing the face of the moon. And when the clouds were
at their thinnest, it was a very dim radiance that the moon was
able to make. I watched and waited. The next time the clouds
thinned I looked for'ard, and there was the shadow of the topmast,
long and attenuated, wavering and lurching on the deck and against
the rigging.
This was my first ghost. Once again have I seen a ghost. It
proved to be a Newfoundland dog, and I don't know which of us was
the more frightened, for I hit that Newfoundland a full right-arm
swing to the jaw. Regarding the Bricklayer's ghost, I will say
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