| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: Whereat Socrates, still carrying on the jest, with a coy, coquettish
air,[14] replied: Yes; only please do not bother me at present. I have
other things to do, you see.
[14] Al. "like a true coquet." Cf. Plat. "Phaedr." 228 C.
Antisthenes replied: How absolutely true to your own character, arch
go-between![15] It is always either your familiar oracle won't suffer
you, that's your pretext, and so you can't converse with me; or you
are bent upon something or somebody else.
[15] See "Mem." III. xi. 14.
Then Socrates: For Heaven's sake, don't carbonado[16] me, Antisthenes,
that's all. Any other savagery on your part I can stand, and will
The Symposium |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: five per cent on your note of hand."
"Oh, we are saved!" said Hortense.
"Well, then, child, Wenceslas had better come with me to see the
lender, who will oblige him at my request. It is Madame Marneffe. If
you flatter her a little--for she is as vain as a /parvenue/--she will
get you out of the scrape in the most obliging way. Come yourself and
see her, my dear Hortense."
Hortense looked at her husband with the expression a man condemned to
death must wear on his way to the scaffold.
"Claude Vignon took Stidmann there," said Wenceslas. "He says it is a
very pleasant house."
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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 Koran: 'O my Lord! thou hast given me dominion, and hast taught me the
interpretation of sayings; O originator of the heavens and the
earth! Thou art my patron in this world and the next; take me to
Thyself resigned, and let me reach the righteous!'
That is one of the stories of the unseen which we inspire thee with,
though thou wert not with them when they agreed in their affair,
when they were so crafty.- And yet most men, though thou shouldst be
urgent, will not believe.
Thou dost not ask them for it a hire; it is naught but a reminder to
the world.
How many a sign in the heavens and the earth do they pass by and
The Koran |
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 Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: hers should curtail it. Yet even her heroism shrank from the
significant glances which Miss Mellins presently began to cast at
the couple in front of them: Ann Eliza could bear to connive at
Evelina's bliss, but not to acknowledge it to others.
At length Evelina's feet also failed her, and she turned to
suggest that they ought to be going home. Her flushed face had
grown pale with fatigue, but her eyes were radiant.
The return lived in Ann Eliza's memory with the persistence of
an evil dream. The horse-cars were packed with the returning
throng, and they had to let a dozen go by before they could push
their way into one that was already crowded. Ann Eliza had never
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