| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: Certain men, having had a glimpse of some phenomena of the natural
working of the Being of Action, were, like Swedenborg, carried away
above this world by their ardent soul, thirsting for poetry, and
filled with the Divine Spirit. Thus, in their ignorance of the causes
and their admiration of the facts, they pleased their fancy by
regarding that inner man as divine, and constructing a mystical
universe. Hence we have angels! A lovely illusion which Lambert would
never abandon, cherishing it even when the sword of his logic was
cutting off their dazzling wings.
"Heaven," he would say, "must, after all, be the survival of our
perfected faculties, and hell the void into which our unperfected
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The horse, as he approached me, I could see was laboring hard;
yet he kept gamely to his task, and Nobs, too. The splendid
fellow was driving the quarry straight toward me. I crouched
behind my bush and laid my noose in readiness to throw. As the
two approached my hiding-place, Nobs reduced his speed, and the
stallion, evidently only too glad of the respite, dropped into
a trot. It was at this gait that he passed me; my rope-hand
flew forward; the honda, well down, held the noose open,
and the beautiful bay fairly ran his head into it.
Instantly he wheeled to dash off at right angles. I braced
myself with the rope around my hip and brought him to a
The People That Time Forgot |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum: the others were solemn, feeling they had been rebuked,
and tramped on in silence.
Suddenly Woot, who was in the lead, looked around and
found that all his comrades had mysteriously
disappeared. But where could they have gone to? The
broad plain was all about him and there were neither
trees nor bushes that could hide even a rabbit, nor any
hole for one to fall into. Yet there he stood, alone.
Surprise had caused him to halt, and with a
thoughtful and puzzled expression on his face he looked
down at his feet. It startled him anew to discover that
The Tin Woodman of Oz |
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 Memorabilia by Xenophon: certain friend remains an honest lad, but falling into the company of
some other becomes a good-for-nothing, will that father straightway
accuse the earlier instructor? Will not he rather, in proportion as
the boy deteriorates in the company of the latter, bestow more
heartfelt praise upon the former? What father, himself sharing the
society of his own children, is held to blame for their
transgressions, if only his own goodness be established? Here would
have been a fair test to apply to Socrates: Was he guilty of any base
conduct himself? If so let him be set down as a knave, but if, on the
contrary, he never faltered in sobriety from beginning to end, how in
the name of justice is he to be held to account for a baseness which
The Memorabilia |
