| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare: That the self was not the same;
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was call'd.
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either-neither,
Simple were so well compounded.
That it cried how true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none
If what parts can so remain.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: hands. "You see, I give myself away. I have
only women come to visit me, and I do not
know how to behave. Where is your trunk?"
"It's in Hanover. I can stay only a few days.
I am on my way to the coast."
They started up the path. "A few days?
After all these years!" Alexandra shook her
finger at him. "See this, you have walked into
a trap. You do not get away so easy." She put
O Pioneers! |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King James Bible: Josiah king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the LORD,
saying,
JER 36:2 Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words
that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and
against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days
of Josiah, even unto this day.
JER 36:3 It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which
I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil
way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
JER 36:4 Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch
wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD, which he had
King James Bible |
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 Juana by Honore de Balzac: luxury, and then to abandon that millionaire life and bury himself as
sub-prefect at Issoudun or Savenay was certainly holding himself below
his position. Juana, too late aware of our laws and habits and
administrative customs, did not enlighten her husband soon enough.
Diard, desperate, petitioned successively all the ministerial powers;
repulsed everywhere, he found nothing open to him; and society then
judged him as the government judged him and as he judged himself.
Diard, grievously wounded on the battlefield, was nevertheless not
decorated; the quartermaster, rich as he was, was allowed no place in
public life, and society logically refused him that to which he
pretended in its midst.
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