| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: which I saw you for the first time, when my life became one with
yours as the earth turns to the light. /Qual pianto/ are these
eleven years, for this is the 26th of December, the anniversary of
my arrival at your villa on the Lake of Geneva. For eleven years
have I been crying to you, while you shine like a star set too
high for man to reach it.
"27th.
"No, dearest, do not go to Milan; stay at Belgirate. Milan
terrifies me. I do not like that odious Milanese fashion of
chatting at the Scala every evening with a dozen persons, among
whom it is hard if no one says something sweet. To me solitude is
Albert Savarus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: jury, if the laws would support an English gentleman, wearing, we
will suppose, his sword, in defending himself by force against a
violent personal aggression of the nature offered to this
prisoner, they will not less protect a foreigner and a stranger,
involved in the same unpleasing circumstances. If, therefore,
gentlemen of the jury, when thus pressed by a VIS MAJOR, the
object of obloquy to a whole company, and of direct violence from
one at least, and, as he might reasonably apprehend, from more,
the panel had produced the weapon which his countrymen, as we are
informed, generally carry about their persons, and the same
unhappy circumstance had ensued which you have heard detailed in
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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 Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: shake Nyleptha from her throne.
That morning we again attended in the Throne Hall, and I could
not help smiling to myself when I compared the visit to our last,
and reflecting that, if walls could speak, they would have strange
tales to tell.
What actresses women are! There, high upon her golden throne,
draped in her blazoned 'kaf' or robe of state, sat the fair Nyleptha,
and when Sir Henry came in a little late, dressed in the full
uniform of an officer of her guard and humbly bent himself before
her, she merely acknowledged his salute with a careless nod and
turned her head coldly aside. It was a very large Court, for
Allan Quatermain |
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: Of a wolf-haunted wife;
We made the best of all she bore
That was not ours to bear,
And honored her for wearing things
That were not things to wear.
There was a distance in her look
That made us look again;
And if she smiled, we might believe
That we had looked in vain.
Rarely she came inside our doors,
And had not long to stay;
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