The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: child and well-beloved? As for him he hath perished,
Odysseus of the seed of Zeus, far from his own country in
the land of strangers. And yonder men, so soon as thou art
gone, will devise mischief against thee thereafter, that
thou mayest perish by guile, and they will share among them
all this wealth of thine. Nay, abide here, settled on thine
own lands: thou hast no need upon the deep unharvested to
suffer evil and go wandering.'
Then wise Telemachus answered her, saying: 'Take heart,
nurse, for lo, this my purpose came not but of a god. But
swear to tell no word thereof to my dear mother, till at
 The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: having slept during the night. Praskovya Mikhaylovna had
remained awake too for a great part of the night, trying to
soften her daughter's anger against her husband.
She saw that it was impossible for her son-in-law, a weak
creature, to be other than he was, and realized that his wife's
reproaches could do no good--so she used all her efforts to
soften those reproaches and to avoid recrimination and anger.
Unkindly relations between people caused her actual physical
suffering. It was so clear to her that bitter feelings do not
make anything better, but only make everything worse. She did
not in fact think about this: she simply suffered at the sight of
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