| 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: "Is he liberated?" asked the lunatic.
"Like liberalism, it has had its day. There is a nobler future before
us: a new faith, free labor, free growth, free production, individual
progress, a social co-ordination in which each man shall receive the
full worth of his individual labor, in which no man shall be preyed
upon by other men who, without capacity of their own, compel ALL to
work for the profit of ONE. From this comes the doctrine of--"
"How about servants?" demanded the lunatic.
"They will remain servants if they have no capacity beyond it."
"Then what's the good of your doctrine?"
"To judge of this doctrine, Monsieur, you must consider it from a
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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 Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: anything worthy of what was already there. The tastes of the family
through long periods of time had accumulated these treasures. One
generation followed the quest of noble pictures, leaving behind it the
necessity of completing a collection still unfinished; and thus the
taste became hereditary in the family. The hundred pictures which
adorned the gallery leading from the family building to the reception-
rooms on the first floor of the front house, as well as some fifty
others placed about the salons, were the product of the patient
researches of three centuries. Among them were choice specimens of
Rubens, Ruysdael, Vandyke, Terburg, Gerard Dow, Teniers, Mieris, Paul
Potter, Wouvermans, Rembrandt, Hobbema, Cranach, and Holbein. French
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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 Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: Theatin.
"But you absolve me from all other sins, why not from that?"
"Because," replied the father, "to absolve you for that
motive would be a sin for which the king would never absolve
me, my lord."
Thereupon the confessor quitted his penitent with an air
full of compunction. He then went out in the same manner he
had entered.
"Oh, good God!" groaned the cardinal. "Come here, Colbert, I
am very, very ill indeed, my friend."
CHAPTER 46
Ten Years Later |
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 Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: consisted solely of material things used to promote the welfare of
certain human beings. Their idea of capital was somewhat confused.
They apparently decided that capital was merely that part of capital
used to produce profit. Prices, exchanges, commercial statistics, and
financial operations comprised the subject matter of these older
economists. It would have been considered ``unscientific'' to take
into account the human factors involved. They might study the wear-
and-tear and depreciation of machinery: but the depreciation or
destruction of the human race did not concern them. Under ``wealth''
they never included the vast, wasted treasury of human life and human
expression.
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