| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: --Lo, I myself am surely the most godless of us at present? But who could
rejoice at that!"--
--"Thou servedst him to the last?" asked Zarathustra thoughtfully, after a
deep silence, "thou knowest HOW he died? Is it true what they say, that
sympathy choked him;
--That he saw how MAN hung on the cross, and could not endure it;--that his
love to man became his hell, and at last his death?"--
The old pope however did not answer, but looked aside timidly, with a
painful and gloomy expression.
"Let him go," said Zarathustra, after prolonged meditation, still looking
the old man straight in the eye.
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: nature are not to be cheated. She is as inexorable as necessity, which
is, indeed, a sort of social nature. Sommervieux took refuge in the
peace and silence of his studio, hoping that the habit of living with
artists might mould his wife and develop in her the dormant germs of
lofty intelligence which some superior minds suppose must exist in
every being. But Augustine was too sincerely religious not to take
fright at the tone of artists. At the first dinner Theodore gave, she
heard a young painter say, with the childlike lightness, which to her
was unintelligible, and which redeems a jest from the taint of
profanity, "But, madame, your Paradise cannot be more beautiful than
Raphael's Transfiguration!--Well, and I got tired of looking at that."
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: matters, that the man was stone-dead. And, indeed, it was a
dreadful sight for him who was hardly more than a child. He stood
rooted for he knew not how long, staring down at the dead face
with twitching fingers and shuddering limbs. Meantime a great
crowd was gathering about them again. As for Captain Morgan, he
went about his work with the utmost coolness and deliberation
imaginable, unbuttoning the waistcoat and the shirt of the man he
had murdered with fingers that neither twitched nor shook. There
were a gold cross and a bunch of silver medals hung by a whipcord
about the neck of the dead man. This Captain Morgan broke away
with a snap, reaching the jingling baubles to Harry, who took
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
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 Salome by Oscar Wilde: Elle a l'air tres ennuyee. Ah! elle vient par ici. Oui, elle vient
vers nous. Comme elle est pale. Jamais je ne l'ai vue si pale . .
.
LE PAGE D'HERODIAS. Ne la regardez pas. Je vous prie de ne pas la
regarder.
LE JEUNE SYRIEN. Elle est comme une colombe qui s'est egaree . . .
Elle est comme un narcisse agite du vent . . . Elle ressemble e une
fleur d'argent. [Entre Salome.]
SALOME. Je ne resterai pas. Je ne peux pu rester. Pourquoi le
tetrarque me regarde-t-il toujours avec ses yeux de taupe sous ses
paupieres tremblantes? . . . C'est etrange que le mari de ma mere me
|
