| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Rosse. Ile see it done
King. What he hath lost, Noble Macbeth hath wonne.
Exeunt.
Scena Tertia.
Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
1. Where hast thou beene, Sister?
2. Killing Swine
3. Sister, where thou?
1. A Saylors Wife had Chestnuts in her Lappe,
And mouncht, & mouncht, and mouncht:
Giue me, quoth I.
Macbeth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: as it were, primeval flowers bred of noble enthusiasms, which droop
and fade from year to year, till joy is but a memory and glory a lie.
Amid such fleeting emotions nothing so resembles love as the young
passion of an artist who tastes the first delicious anguish of his
destined fame and woe,--a passion daring yet timid, full of vague
confidence and sure discouragement. Is there a man, slender in
fortune, rich in his spring-time of genius, whose heart has not beaten
loudly as he approached a master of his art? If there be, that man
will forever lack some heart-string, some touch, I know not what, of
his brush, some fibre in his creations, some sentiment in his poetry.
When braggarts, self-satisfied and in love with themselves, step early
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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 Anabasis by Xenophon: March 399 B.C.
PREPARER'S NOTE
This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a
four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though
there is doubt about some of these) is:
Work Number of books
The Anabasis 7
The Hellenica 7
The Cyropaedia 8
The Memorabilia 4
The Symposium 1
Anabasis |
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 Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Far enough beyond the moment for a glance at the abyss?"
"Will you tell me what intrinsic and amazing sort of nonsense
You are crowding on the patience of the man who gives you -- this?
Look around you and be sorry you're not living in an attic,
With a civet and a fish-net, and with you to pay the rent.
I say words that you can spell without the use of all your letters;
And I grant, if you insist, that I've a guess at what you meant."
"Have I told you, then, for nothing, that I met him? Are you trying
To be merry while you try to make me hate you?"
"Think again,
My dear, before you tell me, in a language unbecoming
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