| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: If we fear not, then no resolved proffer
Can overthrow the limit of our fate;
For, whether ripe or rotten, drop we shall,
As we do draw the lottery of our doom.
PRINCE EDWARD.
Ah, good old man, a thousand thousand armors
These words of thine have buckled on my back:
Ah, what an idiot hast thou made of life,
To seek the thing it fears! and how disgraced
The imperial victory of murdering death,
Since all the lives his conquering arrows strike
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: collapse that has come to the mad direction of Europe for the
past half-century as to make it on the whole almost a beneficial
thing. But at most I can find it in no greater good than the
good of a nightmare that awakens the sleeper in a dangerous place
to a realisation of the extreme danger of his sleep. Better had
he been awake--or never there. In Venetia Captain Pirelli, whose
task it was to keep me out of mischief in the war zone, was
insistent upon the way in which all Venetia was being opened up
by the new military roads; there has been scarcely a new road
made in Venetia since Napoleon drove his straight, poplar-
bordered highways through the land. M. Joseph Reinach, who was
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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 The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey: where a father or brother lies buried. Five sons of mine, not one of
whom died a natural death, found graves here--God rest them! Here's the
grave of Mescal's father, a Spaniard. He was an adventurer. I helped
him over in Nevada when he was ill; he came here with me, got well, and
lived nine years, and he died without speaking one word of himself or
telling his name."
"What strange ends men come to!" mused Hare. Well, a grave was a grave,
wherever it lay. He wondered if he would come to rest in that quiet
nook, with its steady light, its simple dignity of bare plain graves
fitting the brevity of life, the littleness of man.
"We break wild mustangs along this stretch," said Naab, drawing Hare
The Heritage of the Desert |
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 Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: a title to all the debts of the Maison Grandet, your brother or his
heirs will owe nothing to any one. Very good."
"Very g-good," repeated Grandet.
"In equity, if your brother's notes are negotiated--negotiated, do you
clearly understand the term?--negotiated in the market at a reduction
of so much per cent in value, and if one of your friends happening to
be present should buy them in, the creditors having sold them of their
own free-will without constraint, the estate of the late Grandet is
honorably released."
"That's t-true; b-b-business is b-business," said the cooper.
"B-b-but, st-still, you know, it is d-d-difficult. I h-have n-no
Eugenie Grandet |
