| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: "If these ladies are kind to me, I am willing to make myself pleasant
to them," replied Madame de Champy drily.
"Kind! Why, they are excellent; they have named you Joan of Arc,"
replied Philippe.
"Vell den, if dese ladies vill keep you company," said Nucingen, "I
shall go 'vay, for I hafe eaten too much. Your carriage shall come for
you and your people.--Dat teufel Asie!"
"The first time, and you leave me alone!" said Esther. "Come, come,
you must have courage enough to die on deck. I must have my man with
me as I go out. If I were insulted, am I to cry out for nothing?"
The old millionaire's selfishness had to give way to his duties as a
|
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 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: tragically; and if all the woe in the world were taken together,
who would dare to decide whether the sight of it would
NECESSARILY seduce and constrain to sympathy, and thus to a
doubling of the woe? ... That which serves the higher class of
men for nourishment or refreshment, must be almost poison to an
entirely different and lower order of human beings. The virtues
of the common man would perhaps mean vice and weakness in a
philosopher; it might be possible for a highly developed man,
supposing him to degenerate and go to ruin, to acquire qualities
thereby alone, for the sake of which he would have to be honoured
as a saint in the lower world into which he had sunk. There are
Beyond Good and Evil |
