| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: repose for this laborious portion of Paris! It is given up to actions
which make it warped and rough, lean and pale, gush forth with a
thousand fits of creative energy. And then its pleasure, its repose,
are an exhausting debauch, swarthy and black with blows, white with
intoxication, or yellow with indigestion. It lasts but two days, but
it steals to-morrow's bread, the week's soup, the wife's dress, the
child's wretched rags. Men, born doubtless to be beautiful--for all
creatures have a relative beauty--are enrolled from their childhood
beneath the yoke of force, beneath the rule of the hammer, the chisel,
the loom, and have been promptly vulcanized. Is not Vulcan, with his
hideousness and his strength, the emblem of this strong and hideous
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: first sound the vision disappears. The music grows louder and louder.
Egmont awakes. The prison is dimly illuminated by the dawn.--His first
impulse is to lift his hand to his head, he stands up, and gazes round, his
hand still upraised.)
The crown is vanished! Beautiful vision, the light of day has frighted thee!
Yes, their revealed themselves to my sight uniting in one radiant form the
two sweetest joys of my heart. Divine Liberty borrowed the mien of my
beloved one; the lovely maiden arrayed herself in the celestial garb of my
friend. In a solemn moment they appeared united, with aspect more
earnest than tender. With bloodstained feet the vision approached, the
waving folds of her robe also were tinged with blood. It was my blood,
Egmont |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: among enemies who, while not so horrible will kill us just as
surely as would the Wieroos should they capture us, and we have
before us many marches through lands filled with savage beasts."
"There were two reasons," replied Bradley. "You told me that
there are two Wieroo cities at the eastern end of the island.
To have passed near either of them might have been to have brought
about our heads hundreds of the creatures from whom we could not
possibly have escaped. Again, my friends must be near this spot--
it cannot be over two marches to the fort of which I have told you.
It is my duty to return to them. If they still live we shall find
a way to return you to your people."
Out of Time's Abyss |
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 Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: He grieves that he is mortal born, nor marks
That in true death there is no second self
Alive and able to sorrow for self destroyed,
Or stand lamenting that the self lies there
Mangled or burning. For if it an evil is
Dead to be jerked about by jaw and fang
Of the wild brutes, I see not why 'twere not
Bitter to lie on fires and roast in flames,
Or suffocate in honey, and, reclined
On the smooth oblong of an icy slab,
Grow stiff in cold, or sink with load of earth
Of The Nature of Things |
