| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: more desolate and barren.
"In the tale your husband has just told me, I could read, as plainly
as in the contrast between your looks and his, all the painful secrets
of that ill-assorted union, in which you have accepted the sufferer's
part. Though your conduct has been unfailingly heroical, though your
firmness has never once given way in the exercise of your painful
duties, perhaps, in the silence of lonely nights, the heart that at
this moment is beating so wildly in your breast, may, from time to
time, have rebelled. Your husband's superiority was in itself your
worst torment. If he had been less noble, less single-minded, you
might have deserted him; but his virtues upheld yours; you wondered,
Gambara |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: But it is the kingdom of the populace--I no longer allow anything to be
imposed upon me. The populace, however--that meaneth, hodgepodge.
Populace-hodgepodge: therein is everything mixed with everything, saint
and swindler, gentleman and Jew, and every beast out of Noah's ark.
Good manners! Everything is false and foul with us. No one knoweth any
longer how to reverence: it is THAT precisely that we run away from. They
are fulsome obtrusive dogs; they gild palm-leaves.
This loathing choketh me, that we kings ourselves have become false, draped
and disguised with the old faded pomp of our ancestors, show-pieces for the
stupidest, the craftiest, and whosoever at present trafficketh for power.
We ARE NOT the first men--and have nevertheless to STAND FOR them: of this
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: Lucien began the strife by a piece of vehement petulence, at which a
woman laughs so long as she is heart-free, and saddens only when she
loves; whereupon Louise took a lofty tone, and began one of her long
orations, interlarded with high-sounding words.
"Was that your promise to me, Lucien?" she said, as she made an end.
"Do not sow regrets in the present time, so sweet as it is, to poison
my after life. Do not spoil the future, and, I say it with pride, do
not spoil the present! Is not my whole heart yours? What more must you
have? Can it be that your love is influenced by the clamor of the
senses, when it is the noblest privilege of the beloved to silence
them? For whom do you take me? Am I not your Beatrice? If I am not
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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 Critias by Plato: picture of divine and heavenly things which has very little likeness to
them; but we are more precise in our criticism of mortal and human things.
Wherefore if at the moment of speaking I cannot suitably express my
meaning, you must excuse me, considering that to form approved likenesses
of human things is the reverse of easy. This is what I want to suggest to
you, and at the same time to beg, Socrates, that I may have not less, but
more indulgence conceded to me in what I am about to say. Which favour, if
I am right in asking, I hope that you will be ready to grant.
SOCRATES: Certainly, Critias, we will grant your request, and we will
grant the same by anticipation to Hermocrates, as well as to you and
Timaeus; for I have no doubt that when his turn comes a little while hence,
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