| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: demands. He had brought up his children in his own principles, and
taught them from the cradle the religion of their caste. A deep sense
of their own dignity, pride of name, the conviction that they were by
birth great, gave rise in them to a kingly pride, the courage of
knights, and the protecting kindness of a baronial lord; their
manners, harmonizing with their notions, would have become princes,
and offended all the world of the Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve
--a world, above all others, of equality, where every one believed
that M. d'Espard was ruined, and where all, from the lowest to the
highest, refused the privileges of nobility to a nobleman without
money, because they were all ready to allow an enriched bourgeois to
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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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: been most interesting, and will make, if not a series of PALL MALL
articles, at least the first part of a new book. The last weight
on me has been trying to keep notes for this purpose. Indeed, I
have worked like a horse, and am now as tired as a donkey. If I
should have to push on far by rail, I shall bring nothing but my
fine bones to port.
Good-bye to you all. I suppose it is now late afternoon with you
and all across the seas. What shall I find over there? I dare not
wonder. - Ever yours,
R. L. S.
P.S. - I go on my way to-night, if I can; if not, tomorrow:
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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 The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: In your perspective; and there might be fewer
Contemporary motes of prejudice
Between you and the man who made the dust.
Call him a genius or a gentleman,
A prophet or a builder, or what not,
But hold your disposition off the balance,
And weigh him in the light. Once (I believe
I tell you nothing new to your surmise,
Or to the tongues of towns and villages)
I nourished with an adolescent fancy --
Surely forgivable to you, my friend --
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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 Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: For of the sinner I have noted
That when he's sinned he's somewhat bloated,
Or ill some other ghastly fashion
Within that bowel of compassion.
True, I believe the only sinner
Is he that eats a shabby dinner.
You know how Adam with good reason,
For eating apples out of season,
Was "cursed." But that is all symbolic:
The truth is, Adam had the colic.
G.J.
The Devil's Dictionary |
