| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: The limbs away so suddenly that there,
Fallen from the trunk, they quiver on the earth,
The while the mind and powers of the man
Can feel no pain, for swiftness of his hurt,
And sheer abandon in the zest of battle:
With the remainder of his frame he seeks
Anew the battle and the slaughter, nor marks
How the swift wheels and scythes of ravin have dragged
Off with the horses his left arm and shield;
Nor other how his right has dropped away,
Mounting again and on. A third attempts
Of The Nature of Things |
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 Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: had not, indeed, the rosy freshness, the fruit-like bloom which blush
on a girl's cheek during her careless years. Darker shadows, with here
and there a redder vein, took the place of color, symptomatic of an
energetic temper and nervous irritability, such as many men do not
like to meet with in a wife, while to others they are an indication of
the most sensitive chastity and passion mingled with pride.
As soon as Louis saw Mademoiselle de Villenoix, he discerned the angel
within. The richest powers of his soul, and his tendency to ecstatic
reverie, every faculty within him was at once concentrated in
boundless love, the first love of a young man, a passion which is
strong indeed in all, but which in him was raised to incalculable
Louis Lambert |
