| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: homeward and back again; but Clym remembered the moan
and looked closer, and saw that the form was feminine;
and a distress came over him like cold air from a cave.
But he was not absolutely certain that the woman was his mother
till he stooped and beheld her face, pallid, and with closed eyes.
His breath went, as it were, out of his body and the cry
of anguish which would have escaped him died upon his lips.
During the momentary interval that elapsed before he
became conscious that something must be done all sense
of time and place left him, and it seemed as if he and his
mother were as when he was a child with her many years
Return of the Native |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: little face?" he said softly. "Is it known to me of yore?" At that moment
the band began playing; the fat man disappeared. He was tossed away on a
great wave of music that came flying over the gleaming floor, breaking the
groups up into couples, scattering them, sending them spinning...
Leila had learned to dance at boarding school. Every Saturday afternoon
the boarders were hurried off to a little corrugated iron mission hall
where Miss Eccles (of London) held her "select" classes. But the
difference between that dusty-smelling hall--with calico texts on the
walls, the poor terrified little woman in a brown velvet toque with
rabbit's ears thumping the cold piano, Miss Eccles poking the girls' feet
with her long white wand--and this was so tremendous that Leila was sure if
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: stillness prevailed, no one was there to watch his movements. The
post-horses were put into the carriage (it came from a house in the
Avenue de Paris in which an Englishman lived, and had been ordered in
the foreigner's name to avoid raising suspicion). Castanier saw that
he had his bills and his passports, stepped into the carriage, and set
out. But at the barrier he saw two gendarmes lying in wait for the
carriage. A cry of horror burst from him but Melmoth gave him a
glance, and again the sound died in his throat.
"Keep your eyes on the stage, and be quiet!" said the Englishman.
In another moment Castanier saw himself flung into prison at the
Conciergerie; and in the fifth act of the drama, entitled The Cashier,
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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 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: likeliest factors in the great play and battle of forces. That
which is at present called a "nation" in Europe, and is really
rather a RES FACTA than NATA (indeed, sometimes confusmgly
similar to a RES FICTA ET PICTA), is in every case something
evolving, young, easily displaced, and not yet a race, much less
such a race AERE PERENNUS, as the Jews are such "nations" should
most carefully avoid all hotheaded rivalry and hostility! It is
certain that the Jews, if they desired--or if they were driven to
it, as the anti-Semites seem to wish--COULD now have the
ascendancy, nay, literally the supremacy, over Europe, that they
are NOT working and planning for that end is equally certain.
Beyond Good and Evil |
