| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: the days of Henri IV.--is the cause of those vast secret labors which
employ the whole of a Parisian woman's morning, when she wishes, as
Madame Rabourdin wished, to keep up on twelve thousand francs a year
the style that many a family with thirty thousand does not indulge in.
Consequently, every Friday,--the day of her dinner parties,--Madame
Rabourdin helped the chambermaid to do the rooms; for the cook went
early to market, and the man-servant was cleaning the silver, folding
the napkins, and polishing the glasses. The ill-advised individual who
might happen, through an oversight of the porter, to enter Madame
Rabourdin's establishment about eleven o'clock in the morning would
have found her in the midst of a disorder the reverse of picturesque,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: with mutually-murderous hand." Cf. Pind. Fr. 137; Aesch. "Sept. c.
Theb." 931; "Ag." 1575, concerning Eteocles and Polynices.
[12] See Grote, "H. G." xi. 288, xii. 6; "Hell." VI. iv. 36; Isocr.
"On the Peace," 182; Plut. "Dem. Pol." iii. (Clough, v. p. 98);
Tac. "Hist." v. 8, about the family feuds of the kings of Judaea.
[13] "It was his own familiar friend who dealt the blow, the nearest
and dearest to his heart."
How can you suppose, then, that being so hated by those whom nature
predisposes and law compels to love him, the tyrant should be loved by
any living soul beside?
IV
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: thought of flight and not of defending themselves, and they hoped that
the people, disgusted with the insolence of the conquerors, would
recall them. This course, when others fail, may be good, but it is
very bad to have neglected all other expedients for that, since you
would never wish to fall because you trusted to be able to find
someone later on to restore you. This again either does not happen,
or, if it does, it will not be for your security, because that
deliverance is of no avail which does not depend upon yourself; those
only are reliable, certain, and durable that depend on yourself and
your valour.
CHAPTER XXV
The Prince |
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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but
peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did
not inspire him with horror.
To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden
slave. "I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this
deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be
lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but
in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most
trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable
agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger,
except in its absolute effect--in terror. In this unnerved--in
The Fall of the House of Usher |
