| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley: fire along his veins, and he lay down and longed to die; and
cried, 'Through wine I perish, the bane of all my race. Why
should I live for ever in this agony? Who will take my
immortality, that I may die?'
Then Prometheus answered, the good Titan, whom Heracles had
set free from Caucasus, 'I will take your immortality and
live for ever, that I may help poor mortal men.' So Cheiron
gave him his immortality, and died, and had rest from pain.
And Heracles and Prometheus wept over him, and went to bury
him on Pelion; but Zeus took him up among the stars, to live
for ever, grand and mild, low down in the far southern sky.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: of light upon the floor, and Hiram, as he paced up and down, up
and down, walked directly through it, his gaunt figure starting
out at every turn into sudden brightness as he entered the
straight line of misty light.
The clock in the kitchen whirred and rang out the hour of twelve,
and Hiram stopped in his walk to count the strokes.
The last vibration died away into silence, and still he stood
motionless, now listening with a new and sudden intentness, for,
even as the clock rang the last stroke, he heard soft, heavy
footsteps, moving slowly and cautiously along the pathway before
the house and directly below the open window. A few seconds more
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: benevolence. Jean took the storms department; he would fly into a
rage, and propose terms that nobody would think of accepting, to pave
the way for his brother's less unreasonable propositions. And by such
policy the pair attained their ends, sooner or later.
Eve, with a woman's tact, had soon divined the characters of the two
brothers; she was on her guard with foes so formidable. David,
informed beforehand of everything by his wife, lent a profoundly
inattentive mind to his enemies' proposals.
"Come to an understanding with my wife," he said, as he left the
Cointets in the office and went back to his laboratory. "Mme. Sechard
knows more about the business than I do myself. I am interested in
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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 Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: his mountains and his cave, but made many wanderings and questionings, and
ascertained this and that; so that he said of himself jestingly: "Lo, a
river that floweth back unto its source in many windings!" For he wanted
to learn what had taken place AMONG MEN during the interval: whether they
had become greater or smaller. And once, when he saw a row of new houses,
he marvelled, and said:
"What do these houses mean? Verily, no great soul put them up as its
simile!
Did perhaps a silly child take them out of its toy-box? Would that another
child put them again into the box!
And these rooms and chambers--can MEN go out and in there? They seem to be
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
