The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: understand its interior: he had capped and crowned so many people, he
was always flinging himself at their heads, etc. His jokes about hats
and heads were irrepressible, though perhaps not dazzling.
Nevertheless, after August and October, 1830, he abandoned the hat
trade and the article Paris, and tore himself from things mechanical
and visible to mount into the higher spheres of Parisian speculation.
"He forsook," to use his own words, "matter for mind; manufactured
products for the infinitely purer elaborations of human intelligence."
This requires some explanation.
The general upset of 1830 brought to birth, as everybody knows, a
number of old ideas which clever speculators tried to pass off in new
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: you brought it out," she replied.
"Nevertheless," said the little man, winking slyly at Uncle Henry,
"you will do well to watch our supper, my dear, and see that it
doesn't boil over."
Then the men took some pails and went into the forest to search for a
spring of water, and while they were gone Aunt Em said to Dorothy:
"I believe the Wizard is fooling us. I saw the kettle myself, and
when he hung it over the fire there wasn't a thing in it but air."
"Don't worry," remarked Billina, confidently, as she nestled in the
grass before the fire. "You'll find something in the kettle when it's
taken off--and it won't be poor, innocent chickens, either."
The Emerald City of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and
importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers instead of
being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to
employ all their time in stroling to beg sustenance for their
helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for
want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for
the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.
I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number
of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of
their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present
deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional
A Modest Proposal |
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 The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: unsubstantial transformation. The thunder-god, with his belt of
drums, upon which he beats a devil's tattoo until he is black in the
face, is no longer even indirectly associated with the storm.
As for dryads and nymphs, the beautiful creatures never inhabited
Eastern Asia. Anthropoid foxes and raccoons, wholly lacking in
those engaging qualities that beget love, and through love
remembrance, take their place. Even Benten, the naturalized Venus,
who, like her Hellenic sister, is said to have risen from the sea,
is a person quite incapable of inspiring a reckless infatuation.
Utterly unlike was this pantheon to the pantheon of the Greeks,
the personifying tendency of whose Aryan mind was forever peopling
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