| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: the rooms to let would suit us. At midday we were still wandering
about the neighborhood without having found anything. The price
was the great difficulty. Bourgeat proposed that we should eat at
a wine shop, leaving the cart at the door. Towards evening I
discovered, in the Cour de Rohan, Passage du Commerce, at the
very top of a house next the roof, two rooms with a staircase
between them. Each of us was to pay sixty francs a year. So there
we were housed, my humble friend and I. We dined together.
Bourgeat, who earned about fifty sous a day, had saved a hundred
crowns or so; he would soon be able to gratify his ambition by
buying a barrel and a horse. On learning of my situation--for he
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: Arriv'd at Cumae, when you view the flood
Of black Avernus, and the sounding wood,
The mad prophetic Sibyl you shall find,
Dark in a cave, and on a rock reclin'd.
She sings the fates, and, in her frantic fits,
The notes and names, inscrib'd, to leafs commits.
What she commits to leafs, in order laid,
Before the cavern's entrance are display'd:
Unmov'd they lie; but, if a blast of wind
Without, or vapors issue from behind,
The leafs are borne aloft in liquid air,
Aeneid |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: And the guard--what of them? Evidently they, too,
had been so much surprised by the unprecedented action
of the stranger that they had not even challenged;
but that they had no thought to let the thing go unnoticed
was quickly evidenced by the skirring of motors upon
the landing-stage and the quick shooting airward of a
long-lined patrol boat.
Thuvia watched it dart swiftly eastward. So, too,
did other eyes watch.
Within the dense shadows of the skeel grove, in a
wide avenue beneath o'erspreading foliage, a flier hung a
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
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 Memorabilia by Xenophon: say, Socrates, that though hitherto I have not been disposed to
borrow, knowing that when I had spent what I got I should not be in a
condition to repay, I think I can now bring myself to do so in order
to raise a fund for these works.
Thereupon a capital was provided; wools were purchased; the good man's
relatives set to work, and even whilst they breakfasted they worked,
and on and on till work was ended and they supped. Smiles took the
place of frowns; they no longer looked askance with suspicion, but
full into each other's eyes with happiness. They loved their kinsman
for his kindness to them. He became attached to them as helpmates; and
the end of it all was, he came to Socrates and told him with delight
The Memorabilia |
