| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: OUT of the soil and the slime,
Reeking, they climb,
Out of the muck and the mire,
Rank, they aspire;
Filthy with murder and mud,
Black with shed blood,
Lust and passion and clay--
Dying, they slay;
Stirred by vague hints of a goal,
Seeking a soul!
Groping through terror and night
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: let us set the table for his breakfast."
She threw down her work, and her mother did the same, saying, "Foolish
child!" But she sanctioned the child's folly by sharing it. Eugenie
called Nanon.
"What do you want now, mademoiselle?"
"Nanon, can we have cream by midday?"
"Ah! midday, to be sure you can," answered the old servant.
"Well, let him have his coffee very strong; I heard Monsieur des
Grassins say that they make the coffee very strong in Paris. Put in a
great deal."
"Where am I to get it?"
Eugenie Grandet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: to mythology, in the reasons which are given by Zeus for reconstructing the
frame of man, or by the Boeotians and Eleans for encouraging male loves;
(7) the ruling passion of Socrates for dialectics, who will argue with
Agathon instead of making a speech, and will only speak at all upon the
condition that he is allowed to speak the truth. We may note also the
touch of Socratic irony, (8) which admits of a wide application and reveals
a deep insight into the world:--that in speaking of holy things and persons
there is a general understanding that you should praise them, not that you
should speak the truth about them--this is the sort of praise which
Socrates is unable to give. Lastly, (9) we may remark that the banquet is
a real banquet after all, at which love is the theme of discourse, and huge
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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 Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: the general trouble and spoliation. The storms of many kinds
which shook the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century
spent their force before they reached those cliffs at so short a
distance from the coast of Andalusia.
If the rumour of the Emperor's name so much as reached the shore
of the island, it is doubtful whether the holy women kneeling in
the cloisters grasped the reality of his dream-like progress of
glory, or the majesty that blazed in flame across kingdom after
kingdom during his meteor life.
In the minds of the Roman Catholic world, the convent stood out
pre-eminent for a stern discipline which nothing had changed; the
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