| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: suit against laboring men is sure to result in hatred to those who
live among them. Let me warn you of this; for if you follow the course
you propose, you will have to fight against the poor of this district
at least. But that's not all. Counting it over, Monsieur Mariotte, a
worthy man, found he was the loser by his original lease. Forced to
pay ready money, he was nevertheless obliged to sell on time;
Gaubertin delivered his timber at long credits for the purpose of
ruining his competitor. He undersold him by at least five per cent,
and the end of it is that poor Mariotte's credit is badly shaken.
Gaubertin is now pressing and harassing the poor man so that he is
driven, they tell me, to leave not only Auxerre, but even Burgundy
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: advances. I made them, but you know, my dear friend, Madame
du Vallon ---- "
Porthos, in pronouncing these words, seemed to gulp down
something.
"Madame du Vallon was of doubtful gentility. She had, in her
first marriage -- I don't think, D'Artagnan, I am telling
you anything new -- married a lawyer; they thought that
`nauseous;' you can understand that's a word bad enough to
make one kill thirty thousand men. I have killed two, which
has made people hold their tongues, but has not made me
their friend. So that I have no society; I live alone; I am
Twenty Years After |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: the desire of good is at their heels, the implacable hunter.
Of all earth's meteors, here at least is the most strange and
consoling: that this ennobled lemur, this hair-crowned bubble of
the dust, this inheritor of a few years and sorrows, should yet
deny himself his rare delights, and add to his frequent pains, and
live for an ideal, however misconceived. Nor can we stop with man.
A new doctrine, received with screams a little while ago by canting
moralists, and still not properly worked into the body of our
thoughts, lights us a step farther into the heart of this rough but
noble universe. For nowadays the pride of man denies in vain his
kinship with the original dust. He stands no longer like a thing
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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 Richard III by William Shakespeare: ACT IV. SCENE 1.
London. Before the Tower
Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS of YORK, and MARQUIS of DORSET, at
one door;
ANNE, DUCHESS of GLOUCESTER, leading LADY MARGARET PLANTAGENET,
CLARENCE's young daughter, at another door
DUCHESS. Who meets us here? My niece Plantagenet,
Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?
Now, for my life, she's wand'ring to the Tower,
On pure heart's love, to greet the tender Princes.
Daughter, well met.
Richard III |
