| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: man is the less can his every act escape notice. As to Agesilaus no
eye-witness has ever reported any unworthy behaviour, nor, had he
invented it, would his tale have found credence, since it was not the
habit of the king, when abroad, to lodge apart in private houses. He
always lay up in some sacred place, where behaviour of the sort was
out of the question, or else in public, with the eyes of all men
liable to be called as witnesses to his sobriety. For myself, if I
make these statements falsely against the knowledge of Hellas, this
were not in any sense to praise my hero, but to dispraise myself.
[8] Or, "than the seductions in question."
VI
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: The only person now living who preserves any recollection of the
incident, and whom I catechised to be informed of what few words
Madame de Stael had let drop, could with difficulty recall these words
spoken by the Baroness as describing Lambert, "He is a real seer."
Louis failed to justify in the eyes of the world the high hopes he had
inspired in his protectress. The transient favor she showed him was
regarded as a feminine caprice, one of the fancies characteristic of
artist souls. Madame de Stael determined to save Louis Lambert alike
from serving the Emperor or the Church, and to preserve him for the
glorious destiny which, she thought, awaited him; for she made him out
to be a second Moses snatched from the waters. Before her departure
Louis Lambert |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: the way from Genoa to England to break to me herself the tidings of
so irreparable, so irremediable, a loss. Messages of sympathy
reached me from all who had still affection for me. Even people
who had not known me personally, hearing that a new sorrow had
broken into my life, wrote to ask that some expression of their
condolence should be conveyed to me. . . .
Three months go over. The calendar of my daily conduct and labour
that hangs on the outside of my cell door, with my name and
sentence written upon it, tells me that it is May. . . .
Prosperity, pleasure and success, may be rough of grain and common
in fibre, but sorrow is the most sensitive of all created things.
|
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 From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: The three men started off at once; the captain having discharged
his rifle threw it over his shoulder, and advanced in silence.
Another half hour passed, and the pursuit was still fruitless.
Maston was oppressed by sinister forebodings. He looked fiercely
at Nicholl, asking himself whether the captain's vengeance had
already been satisfied, and the unfortunate Barbicane, shot, was
perhaps lying dead on some bloody track. The same thought seemed
to occur to Ardan; and both were casting inquiring glances on
Nicholl, when suddenly Maston paused.
The motionless figure of a man leaning against a gigantic
catalpa twenty feet off appeared, half-veiled by the foliage.
From the Earth to the Moon |
