| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Then once more,
'Are you that Lady Psyche,' I began,
'That on her bridal morn before she past
From all her old companions, when the kind
Kissed her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties
Would still be dear beyond the southern hills;
That were there any of our people there
In want or peril, there was one to hear
And help them? look! for such are these and I.'
'Are you that Psyche,' Florian asked, 'to whom,
In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: and azure studded with pearls and gems torn from the bowels of Earth,
stolen from the depths of Ocean, for which Humanity had toiled
throughout the centuries, sweating and blaspheming. But these
treasures, these splendors, constructed of blood, seemed worn-out rags
to the eyes of the two Exiles. "What do you there, in motionless
ranks?" cried Wilfrid. They answered not. "What do you there,
motionless?" They answered not. Wilfrid waved his hands over them,
crying in a loud voice, "What do you there, in motionless ranks?" All,
with unanimous action, opened their garments and gave to sight their
withered bodies, eaten with worms, putrefied, crumbling to dust,
rotten with horrible diseases.
Seraphita |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: certainly oblige you with the greatest pleasure, but I haven't any
money to loan at the present time."
"Ah, bah!"
"No; I have given all I had to--you know who. That poor Lousteau went
into partnership for the management of a theatre with an old
vaudevillist who has great influence with the ministry, Ridal; and
they came to me yesterday for thirty thousand francs. I'm cleaned out,
and so completely that I was just in the act of sending to Cerizet for
a hundred louis, when I lost at lansquenet this morning, at Jenny
Cadine's."
"You must indeed me hard-up if you can't oblige this poor Bixiou,"
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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 Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: obtain.
XCVI
Pittacus wronged by one whom he had it in his power to
punish, let him go free, saying, Forgiveness is better than
revenge. The one shows native gentleness, the other savagery.
XCVII
"My brother ought not to have treated me thus."
True: but he must see to that. However he may treat me, I
must deal rightly by him. This is what lies with me, what none
can hinder.
XCVIII
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
