| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: handkerchief in the duennna's despite. In contempt of what might be
said by the curious, her handkerchief cried to Henri openly: "Follow
me!"
"Have you ever seen a handkerchief better thrown?" said Henri to Paul
de Manerville.
Then, observing a fiacre on the point of departure, having just set
down a fare, he made a sign to the driver to wait.
"Follow that carriage, notice the house and the street where it stops
--you shall have ten francs. . . . Paul, adieu."
The cab followed the /coupe/. The /coupe/ stopped in the Rue Saint
Lazare before one of the finest houses of the neighborhood.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does no
good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.
Wednesday
Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to
myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put
it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it
away with the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of
the other animals make when they are in distress. I wish it would
not talk; it is always talking. That sounds like a cheap fling
at the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so. I have never
heard the human voice before, and any new and strange sound
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: And leaue thee to the mercy of wilde beasts
Hel. The wildest hath not such a heart as you;
Runne when you will, the story shall be chang'd:
Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase;
The Doue pursues the Griffin, the milde Hinde
Makes speed to catch the Tyger. Bootlesse speede,
When cowardise pursues, and valour flies
Demet. I will not stay thy questions, let me go;
Or if thou follow me, doe not beleeue,
But I shall doe thee mischiefe in the wood
Hel. I, in the Temple, in the Towne, and Field
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
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 Apology by Xenophon: is just a suspicion of foolhardiness in the arrogancy of his
address.[5] We have, however, from the lips of one of his intimate
acquaintances, Hermogenes,[6] the son of Hipponicus, an account of him
which shows the high demeanour in question to have been altogether in
keeping with the master's rational purpose.[7] Hermogenes says that,
seeing Socrates discoursing on every topic rather than that of his
impending trial, he roundly put it to him whether he ought not to be
debating the line of his defence, to which Socrates in the first
instance answered: "What! do I not seem to you to have spent my whole
life in meditating my defence?" And when Hermogenes asked him, "How?"
he added: "By a lifelong persistence in doing nothing wrong, and that
The Apology |
