| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: most fleetly over the teeming ways, and in the night they
touched at Geraestus. So there we sacrificed many thighs of
bulls to Poseidon, for joy that we had measured out so
great a stretch of sea. It was the fourth day when the
company of Diomede son of Tydeus, tamer of horses, moored
their gallant ships at Argos; but I held on for Pylos, and
the breeze was never quenched from the hour that the god
sent it forth to blow. Even so I came, dear child, without
tidings, nor know I aught of those others, which of the
Achaeans were saved and which were lost. But all that I
hear tell of as I sit in our halls, thou shalt learn as it
The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: St. Mark, the Evangelist!
JULIA.
Ah, your tame lion
Is Michael Angelo.
VITTORIA.
You speak a name
That always thrills me with a noble sound,
As of a trumpet! Michael Angelo!
A lion all men fear and none can tame;
A man that all men honor, and the model
That all should follow; one who works and prays,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: lawyers and certain magistrates astonished and confounded Laurence;
her heart was wrung by that inexorable logic.
"Out of every hundred criminal cases," continued Bordin, "there are
not ten where the law really lays bare the truth to its full extent;
and there is perhaps a good third in which the truth is never brought
to light at all. Yours is one of those cases which are inexplicable to
all parties, to accused and accusers, to the law and to the public. As
for the Emperor, he has other fish to fry than to consider the case of
these gentlemen, supposing even that they had not conspired against
him. But who the devil /is/ Malin's enemy? and what has really been
done with him?"
|
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 Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: see her, not a week passed without fresh introductions. The wife of
the presiding judge, an august /bourgeoise/, /nee/ Popinot-Chandier,
desired her son, a youth of two-and-twenty, to pay his humble respects
to La Baudraye, and flattered herself that she might see her Gatien in
the good graces of this Superior Woman.--The words Superior Woman had
superseded the absurd nickname of /The Sappho of Saint-Satur/.--This
lady, who for nine years had led the opposition, was so delighted at
the good reception accorded to her son, that she became loud in her
praises of the Muse of Sancerre.
"After all," she exclaimed, in reply to a tirade from Madame de
Clagny, who hated her husband's supposed mistress, "she is the
The Muse of the Department |
