| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: And drive that dread of Acheron without,
Headlong, which so confounds our human life
Unto its deeps, pouring o'er all that is
The black of death, nor leaves not anything
To prosper- a liquid and unsullied joy.
For as to what men sometimes will affirm:
That more than Tartarus (the realm of death)
They fear diseases and a life of shame,
And know the substance of the soul is blood,
Or rather wind (if haply thus their whim),
And so need naught of this our science, then
Of The Nature of Things |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: had planted in my mind, more than at any former time. These
women--I could find it in my heart to hate them for their
frankness, for their foolish confidence, and the silly
trustfulness that made them so easy a prey!
NOM DE DIEU! What did the woman mean by telling me all this? To
meet me in such a way, to disarm one by such methods, was to take
an unfair advantage. It put a vile--ay, the vilest--aspect, on
the work I had to do.
Yet it was very odd! What could M. de Cocheforet mean by
returning so soon, if M. de Cocheforet was here? And, on the
other hand, if it was not his unexpected presence that had so
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