| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: bestow upon it, death is either a friend who rocks us gently
as a nurse, or an enemy who violently drags the soul from
the body. Some day, when the world is much older, and when
mankind will be masters of all the destructive powers in
nature, to serve for the general good of humanity; when
mankind, as you were just saying, have discovered the
secrets of death, then that death will become as sweet and
voluptuous as a slumber in the arms of your beloved."
"And if you wished to die, you would choose this death,
count?"
"Yes."
The Count of Monte Cristo |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: Has led me to these mournful shores,"
he hummed in an undertone.
And the tune for some reason haunted him and his friends all the
way, and all three of them hummed it mechanically, not in time
with one another.
Vassilyev's imagination was picturing how, in another ten
minutes, he and his friends would knock at a door; how by little
dark passages and dark rooms they would steal in to the women;
how, taking advantage of the darkness, he would strike a match,
would light up and see the face of a martyr and a guilty smile.
The unknown, fair or dark, would certainly have her hair down and
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: surmounted by a purple canopy, and surrounded by the Ancients crowned
with their golden tiaras.
Thereupon an immense shout arose; the cymbals and crotala sounded more
loudly, the tabourines thundered, and the great purple canopy sank
between the two pylons.
It appeared again on the first landing. Salammbo was walking slowly
beneath it; then she crossed the terrace to take her seat behind on a
kind of throne cut out of the carapace of a tortoise. An ivory stool
with three steps was pushed beneath her feet; two Negro children knelt
on the edge of the first step, and sometimes she would rest both arms,
which were laden with rings of excessive weight, upon their heads.
Salammbo |
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 Republic by Plato: other countries, or dwindle in numbers, or both. Dynasties and
aristocracies which have disregarded the laws of nature have decreased in
numbers and degenerated in stature; 'mariages de convenance' leave their
enfeebling stamp on the offspring of them (King Lear). The marriage of
near relations, or the marrying in and in of the same family tends
constantly to weakness or idiocy in the children, sometimes assuming the
form as they grow older of passionate licentiousness. The common
prostitute rarely has any offspring. By such unmistakable evidence is the
authority of morality asserted in the relations of the sexes: and so many
more elements enter into this 'mystery' than are dreamed of by Plato and
some other philosophers.
The Republic |
