| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: ble, shudder.
It was a habit he had, and of course I was per-
fectly familiar with it, since you could not remain
an hour in his company without being made to won-
der at such a movement breaking some long period
of stillness. it was a passionate and inexplicable
gesture. He used to make it at all sorts of times;
as likely as not after he had been listening to little
Lena's chatter about the suffering doll, for instance.
The Hermann children always besieged him about
his legs closely, though, in a gentle way, he shrank
Falk |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: His life is an open book."
"Oh," he answered, "I don't mean anything bad, mother dear.
I know the governor's life is an open book--a ledger, if you
like,
kept in the best bookkeeping hand, and always ready for
inspection--every page correct, and showing a handsome balance.
But isn't it a mistake not to allow us to make our own mistakes,
to learn for ourselves, to live our own lives? Must we be
always working for 'the balance,' in one thing or another?
I want to be myself--to get outside of this everlasting,
profitable 'plan'--to let myself go, and lose myself for a while
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: them under the scarlet heels of their dainty buckled shoes, and now
the people had become the rulers of France and crushed their former
masters--not beneath their heel, for they went shoeless mostly in
these days--but a more effectual weight, the knife of the guillotine.
And daily, hourly, the hideous instrument of torture claimed
its many victims--old men, young women, tiny children until the day
when it would finally demand the head of a King and of a beautiful
young Queen.
But this was as it should be: were not the people now the
rulers of France? Every aristocrat was a traitor, as his ancestors
had been before him: for two hundred years now the people had sweated,
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
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 Euthydemus by Plato: Ctesippus, and said to him: To you, Ctesippus, I must repeat what I said
before to Cleinias--that you do not understand the ways of these
philosophers from abroad. They are not serious, but, like the Egyptian
wizard, Proteus, they take different forms and deceive us by their
enchantments: and let us, like Menelaus, refuse to let them go until they
show themselves to us in earnest. When they begin to be in earnest their
full beauty will appear: let us then beg and entreat and beseech them to
shine forth. And I think that I had better once more exhibit the form in
which I pray to behold them; it might be a guide to them. I will go on
therefore where I left off, as well as I can, in the hope that I may touch
their hearts and move them to pity, and that when they see me deeply
|
