| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: day. His thoughts were concentrated on the words he had written
down in his memoranda on the occasion when not he but Viglanoff
was appointed to the important post he had long coveted. It was
the chairman, Nikitin's, honest conviction that his opinions of
the officials of the two upper classes with which he was in
connection would furnish valuable material for the historians. He
had written a chapter the day before in which the officials of
the upper classes got it hot for preventing him, as he expressed
it, from averting the ruin towards which the present rulers of
Russia were driving it, which simply meant that they had prevented
his getting a better salary. And now he was considering what a
Resurrection |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Vines Thasian are there, Mareotids white,
These apt for richer soils, for lighter those:
Psithian for raisin-wine more useful, thin
Lageos, that one day will try the feet
And tie the tongue: purples and early-ripes,
And how, O Rhaetian, shall I hymn thy praise?
Yet cope not therefore with Falernian bins.
Vines Aminaean too, best-bodied wine,
To which the Tmolian bows him, ay, and king
Phanaeus too, and, lesser of that name,
Argitis, wherewith not a grape can vie
Georgics |
