| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: As you do love, fill to your mistress' lips, --
We drink this health to you.
KNIGHTS.
We thank your grace.
SIMONIDES.
Yet pause awhile:
Yon knight doth sit too melancholy,
As if the entertainment in our court
Had not a show might countervail his worth.
Note it not you, Thaisa?
THAISA.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: air; it was their verdure seen from afar which had brought hope and
consolation to his heart. His fatigue was so great that he lay down
upon a rock of granite, capriciously cut out like a camp-bed; there he
fell asleep without taking any precaution to defend himself while he
slept. He had made the sacrifice of his life. His last thought was one
of regret. He repented having left the Maugrabins, whose nomadic life
seemed to smile upon him now that he was far from them and without
help. He was awakened by the sun, whose pitiless rays fell with all
their force on the granite and produced an intolerable heat--for he
had had the stupidity to place himself adversely to the shadow thrown
by the verdant majestic heads of the palm trees. He looked at the
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: shepherding, but he had taken a ransom for them; now, however,
Agamemnon son of Atreus smote Isus in the chest above the nipple
with his spear, while he struck Antiphus hard by the ear and
threw him from his chariot. Forthwith he stripped their goodly
armour from off them and recognized them, for he had already seen
them at ships when Achilles brought them in from Ida. As a lion
fastens on the fawns of a hind and crushes them in his great
jaws, robbing them of their tender life while he on his way back
to his lair--the hind can do nothing for them even though she be
close by, for she is in an agony of fear, and flies through the
thick forest, sweating, and at her utmost speed before the mighty
The Iliad |
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 Paz by Honore de Balzac: One morning Clementine appeared to be thinking of something. She was
lying at full length on one of those marvellous couches from which it
is almost impossible to rise, the upholsterer having invented them for
lovers of the "far niente" and its attendant joys of laziness to sink
into. The doors of the greenhouse were open, letting the odors of
vegetation and the perfume of the tropics pervade the room. The young
wife was looking at her husband who was smoking a narghile, the only
form of pipe she would have suffered in that room. The portieres, held
back by cords, gave a vista through two elegant salons, one white and
gold, comparable only to that of the hotel Forbin-Janson, the other in
the style of the Renaissance. The dining-room, which had no rival in
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