| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: into relief. Rabourdin wore habitually a blue surcoat, a white cravat,
a waistcoat crossed a la Robespierre, black trousers without straps,
gray silk stockings and low shoes. Well-shaved, and with his stomach
warmed by a cup of coffee, he left home at eight in the morning with
the regularity of clock-work, always passing along the same streets on
his way to the ministry: so neat was he, so formal, so starched that
he might have been taken for an Englishman on the road to his embassy.
From these general signs you will readily discern a family man,
harassed by vexations in his own household, worried by annoyances at
the ministry, yet philosopher enough to take life as he found it; an
honest man, loving his country and serving it, not concealing from
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: teaching, and turneth it into delusion and hatred of heart.
And when a person goeth through fire for his teaching--what doth that
prove! It is more, verily, when out of one's own burning cometh one's own
teaching!
Sultry heart and cold head; where these meet, there ariseth the blusterer,
the "Saviour."
Greater ones, verily, have there been, and higher-born ones, than those
whom the people call Saviours, those rapturous blusterers!
And by still greater ones than any of the Saviours must ye be saved, my
brethren, if ye would find the way to freedom!
Never yet hath there been a Superman. Naked have I seen both of them, the
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: tonight, Oro."
"Much better, I think, Preacher, since by then they will have
left sorrow and pain and wickedness and war far behind them."
"Where are we to go?" I asked.
"The Lady Yva will show you," he answered, waving his hand, and
once more bent over his endless calculations.
Yva beckoned to us and we turned and followed her down the
hall. She led us to a street near the gateway of the temple and
thence into one of the houses. There was a portico to it leading
to a court out of which opened rooms somewhat in the Pompeian
fashion. We did not enter the rooms, for at the end of the court
When the World Shook |
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: Forthwith they devoted themselves to those affairs of state but for
which they would never have come near him at all.
No; if one would seek to see true companions of Socrates, one must
look to Crito,[24] and Chaerephon, and Chaerecrates, to Hermogenes, to
Simmias and Cebes, to Phaedondes and others, who clung to him not to
excel in the rhetoric of the Assembly or the law-courts, but with the
nobler ambition of attaining to such beauty and goodliness of soul as
would enable them to discharge the various duties of life to house and
family, to relatives and friends, to fellow-citizens, and to the state
at large. Of these true followers not one in youth or old age was ever
guilty, or thought guilty, of committing any evil deed.
The Memorabilia |
