| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: sufficiently accomplished. He hesitated between this awakened mercy
and his dormant hate.
"I can annihilate him commercially," he thought; "I have the power of
life or death over him,--over his wife who insulted me, and his
daughter whose hand once seemed to me a fortune. I have got his money;
suppose I content myself with letting the poor fool swim at the end of
a line I'll hold for him?"
Honest minds are devoid of tact; their excellence is uncalculating,
even unreflecting, because they are wholly without evasions or mental
reservations of their own. Birotteau now brought about his downfall;
he incensed the tiger, pierced him to the heart without knowing it,
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience;
The Taming of the Shrew |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: a big capital to work with? Why, Alfred E. Ricks, as we left him, was
as helpless as turtle on its back. He couldn't have worked a scheme to
beat a little girl out of a penny slate-pencil.
"When me and Bill Bassett was left alone I did a little sleight-of-
mind turn in my head with a trade secret at the end of it. Thinks I,
I'll show this Mr. Burglar Man the difference between business and
labor. He had hurt some of my professional self-adulation by casting
his Persians upon commerce and trade.
"'I won't take any of your money as a gift, Mr. Bassett,' says I to
him, 'but if you'll pay my expenses as a travelling companion until we
get out of the danger zone of the immoral deficit you have caused in
|
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 Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.
BAPTISTA.
It likes me well. Cambio, hie you home,
And bid Bianca make her ready straight;
And, if you will, tell what hath happened:
Lucentio's father is arriv'd in Padua,
And how she's like to be Lucentio's wife.
LUCENTIO.
I pray the gods she may, with all my heart!
TRANIO.
Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.
The Taming of the Shrew |
