| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: were guessed, fulfilled, and more than fulfilled. After all, I am
thirty-five, and at five-and-thirty a woman cannot expect to be loved.
Ah, if I were a girl of sixteen, if I had not lost something that is
dearly bought at the Opera, what attention you would pay me, M. du
Bruel! I feel the most supreme contempt for men who boast that they
can love and grow careless and neglectful in little things as time
grows on. You are short and insignificant, you see, du Bruel; you love
to torment a woman; it is your only way of showing your strength. A
Napoleon is ready to be swayed by the woman he loves; he loses nothing
by it; but as for such as you, you believe that you are nothing
apparently, you do not wish to be ruled.--Five-and-thirty, my dear
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: #STARTMARK#
JFK's Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961, 12:11 EST
We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom. . .
symbolizing an end as well as a beginning. . .signifying renewal
as well as change for I have sworn before you and Almighty God
the same solemn oath our forbears prescribed nearly a century
and three-quarters ago.
The world is very different now, for man holds in his mortal hands
the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.
And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forbears fought
are still at issue around the globe. . .the belief that the rights of man
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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 Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: The very nature of fire-fraught thunderbolt;
O this it is to mark by what blind force
It maketh each effect, and not, O not
To unwind Etrurian scrolls oracular,
Inquiring tokens of occult will of gods,
Even as to whence the flying flame hath come,
Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how
Through walled places it hath wound its way,
Or, after proving its dominion there,
How it hath speeded forth from thence amain,
Or what the thunderstroke portends of ill
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 The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: That chapters and cloisters [colleges of canons and
communistic dwellings], which were formerly founded with the
good intention [of our forefathers] to educate learned men and
chaste [and modest] women, ought again to be turned to such
use, in order that pastors, preachers, and other ministers of
the churches may be had, and likewise other necessary persons
[fitted] for [the political administration of] the secular
government [or for the commonwealth] in cities and countries,
and well-educated, maidens for mothers and housekeepers, etc.
If they will not serve this purpose, it is better that they be
abandoned or razed, rather than [continued and], with their
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