| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: of Ivry."
But after the word "Lark" Marius heard nothing more. These sudden
congealments in the state of revery, which a single word suffices
to evoke, do occur. The entire thought is abruptly condensed around
an idea, and it is no longer capable of perceiving anything else.
The Lark was the appellation which had replaced Ursule in the depths
of Marius' melancholy.--"Stop," said he with a sort of unreasoning
stupor peculiar to these mysterious asides, "this is her meadow.
I shall know where she lives now."
It was absurd, but irresistible.
And every day he returned to that meadow of the Lark.
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: frowning brows, and the fat little hands, with clenched fingers,
that rubbed the little eyes and nose. At such moments
particularly, Alexey Alexandrovitch had a sense of perfect peace
and inward harmony, and saw nothing extraordinary in his
position, nothing that ought to be changed.
But as time went on, he saw more and more distinctly that however
natural the position now seemed to him, he would not long be
allowed to remain in it. He felt that besides the blessed
spiritual force controlling his soul, there was another, a brutal
force, as powerful, or more powerful, which controlled his life,
and that this force would not allow him that humble peace he
Anna Karenina |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty knots an hour!
Thirty an' more. What I ha' seen since ocean-steam began
Leaves me no doot for the machine: but what about the man?
The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million mile o' sea:
Four time the span from earth to moon. . . . How far, O Lord, from Thee?
That wast beside him night an' day. Ye mind my first typhoon?
It scoughed the skipper on his way to jock wi' the saloon.
Three feet were on the stokehold-floor -- just slappin' to an' fro --
An' cast me on a furnace-door. I have the marks to show.
Marks! I ha' marks o' more than burns -- deep in my soul an' black,
An' times like this, when things go smooth, my wickudness comes back.
Verses 1889-1896 |
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 Philebus by Plato: man could be utterly miserable (Arist. Ethics), or place a bad man in the
first rank of happiness. But yet, from various circumstances, the measure
of a man's happiness may be out of all proportion to his desert. And if we
insist on calling the good man alone happy, we shall be using the term in
some new and transcendental sense, as synonymous with well-being. We have
already seen that happiness includes the happiness of others as well as our
own; we must now comprehend unconscious as well as conscious happiness
under the same word. There is no harm in this extension of the meaning,
but a word which admits of such an extension can hardly be made the basis
of a philosophical system. The exactness which is required in philosophy
will not allow us to comprehend under the same term two ideas so different
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