| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: reasons of things and the best means of action, taking care to give
her none but correct ideas. When, apropos of a flower, a star, a blade
of grass, her thoughts went straight to God, the doctor and the
professor told her that the priest alone could answer her. None of
them intruded on the territory of the others; the doctor took charge
of her material well-being and the things of life; Jordy's department
was instruction; moral and spiritual questions and the ideas
appertaining to the higher life belonged to the abbe. This noble
education was not, as it often is, counteracted by injudicious
servants. La Bougival, having been lectured on the subject, and being,
moreover, too simple in mind and character to interfere, did nothing
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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 Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: at the back:
"This picture of her mistress is given to Emma Chailey by Willoughby
Vinrace in gratitude for thirty years of devoted service."
Tears obliterated the words and the head of the nail.
"So long as I can do something for your family," she was saying,
as she hammered at it, when a voice called melodiously in the passage:
"Mrs. Chailey! Mrs. Chailey!"
Chailey instantly tidied her dress, composed her face, and opened
the door.
"I'm in a fix," said Mrs. Ambrose, who was flushed and out of breath.
"You know what gentlemen are. The chairs too high--the tables
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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 Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: became the handmaid of a woman, and now would he need also to become an
angel.
Careful, have I found all buyers, and all of them have astute eyes. But
even the astutest of them buyeth his wife in a sack.
Many short follies--that is called love by you. And your marriage putteth
an end to many short follies, with one long stupidity.
Your love to woman, and woman's love to man--ah, would that it were
sympathy for suffering and veiled deities! But generally two animals
alight on one another.
But even your best love is only an enraptured simile and a painful ardour.
It is a torch to light you to loftier paths.
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
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: said, no one would care to apply in selecting a pilot or a flute-
player or in any similar case, where a mistake would be far less
disastrous than in matters political. Words like these, according to
the accuser, tended to incite the young to contemn the established
constitution, rendering them violent and headstrong. But for myself I
think that those who cultivate wisdom and believe themselves able to
instruct their fellow-citizens as to their interests are least likely
to become partisans of violence. They are too well aware that to
violence attach enmities and dangers, whereas results as good may be
obtained by persuasion safely and amicably. For the victim of violence
hates with vindictiveness as one from whom something precious has been
The Memorabilia |
