| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: Papa -- poor der Papa is so coarse and crude
sometimes in his attempts to be witty -- Papa says it
would be a fine idea to lead the man who talked to
us into a boiled cabbage foundy and then watch
him die of the noise. Papa is not Sensitized; he
doesn't understand that the esthete really WOULD die --
Papa resists the vibrations of the esthetic en-
vironment with which I have striven to surround him,
if you get what I mean.
Oh, to be Sensitized! To be Sensitized! To vi-
brate like a reed in the wind! To thrill like a petal
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: with its black arts--a mere shadow and reminiscence of
humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already,
as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniment,
though it may be,
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where out hero was buried."
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly,
but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army,
and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc.
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: look, waiting upon Thy commands, attentive to Thy signals? Wilt
Thou that I now depart from the great Assembly of men? I go: I
give Thee all thanks, that Thou hast deemed me worthy to take
part with Thee in this Assembly: to behold Thy works, to
comprehend this Thine administration."
Such I would were the subject of my thoughts, my pen, my
study, when death overtakes me.
LXXXV
Seemeth it nothing to you, never to accuse, never to blame
either God or Man? to wear ever the same countenance in going
forth as in coming in? This was the secret of Socrates: yet he
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
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 Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: Strasburg; then I returned to Paris, for, unluckily, I was laid up all
through the campaign in France. If it had not been for that wretched
mishap, I should have entered the Grenadier Guards, and then the
Emperor would have promoted me. As it was, sir, I had three broken
ribs and another man's wife and child to support! My pay, as you can
imagine, was not exactly the wealth of the Indies. Renard's father,
the toothless old shark, would have nothing to say to his daughter-in-
law; and the old father Jew had made off. Judith was fretting herself
to death. She cried one morning while she was dressing my wound.
" 'Judith,' said I, 'your child has nothing in this world----'
" 'Neither have I!' she said.
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