| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: Lieutenant, between anger and bewilderment.
"I have said that it was made to appear a duel. There is a
distinction, as I shall show, if you will condescend to hear me out."
"Take your own time, sir!" said the ironical M. de Lesdiguieres,
whose tenure of office had never yet held anything that remotely
resembled this experience.
Andre-Louis took him literally. "I thank you, sir," he answered,
solemnly, and submitted his argument. "It can be shown that M. de
Vilmorin never practised fencing in all his life, and it is notorious
that M. de La Tour d'Azyr is an exceptional swordsman. Is it a duel,
monsieur, where one of the combatants alone is armed? For it amounts
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: pleasures that it has never known. And then, when you are tired of
these flowers of evil, turn to the flowers that grow in the garden
of Perdita, and in their dew-drenched chalices cool your fevered
brow, and let their loveliness heal and restore your soul; or wake
from his forgotten tomb the sweet Syrian, Meleager, and bid the
lover of Heliodore make you music, for he too has flowers in his
song, red pomegranate blossoms, and irises that smell of myrrh,
ringed daffodils and dark blue hyacinths, and marjoram and crinkled
ox-eyes. Dear to him was the perfume of the bean-field at evening,
and dear to him the odorous eared-spikenard that grew on the Syrian
hills, and the fresh green thyme, the wine-cup's charm. The feet
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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 Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: CARRIED aloft; do not seat yourselves on other people's backs and heads!
Thou hast mounted, however, on horseback? Thou now ridest briskly up to
thy goal? Well, my friend! But thy lame foot is also with thee on
horseback!
When thou reachest thy goal, when thou alightest from thy horse: precisely
on thy HEIGHT, thou higher man,--then wilt thou stumble!
11.
Ye creating ones, ye higher men! One is only pregnant with one's own
child.
Do not let yourselves be imposed upon or put upon! Who then is YOUR
neighbour? Even if ye act "for your neighbour"--ye still do not create for
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
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 Charmides by Plato: but all things else, whether outward objects or abstract ideas, are
relegated to the class of neuters. Hardly in some flight of poetry do we
ever endue any of them with the characteristics of a sentient being, and
then only by speaking of them in the feminine gender. The virtues may be
pictured in female forms, but they are not so described in language; a ship
is humorously supposed to be the sailor's bride; more doubtful are the
personifications of church and country as females. Now the genius of the
Greek language is the opposite of this. The same tendency to
personification which is seen in the Greek mythology is common also in the
language; and genders are attributed to things as well as persons according
to their various degrees of strength and weakness; or from fanciful
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