| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: Say--the world is a nettle; disturb it, it stings:
Grasp it firmly, it stings not. On one of two things,
If you would not be stung, it behoves you to settle
Avoid it, or crush it. She crush'd not the nettle;
For she could not; nor would she avoid it: she tried
With the weak hand of woman to thrust it aside,
And it stung her. A woman is too slight a thing
To trample the world without feeling its sting.
III.
One lodges but simply at Luchon; yet, thanks
To the season that changes forever the banks
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: would have passed him without notice, as one of
the yeomen of the guard; but finding him in the
inner hall, he looked at him with more attention,
and recognised the Norman knight in the dress of
an English yeoman.
``What mummery is this, De Bracy?'' said Fitzurse,
somewhat angrily; ``is this a time for Christmas
gambols and quaint maskings, when the fate of
our master, Prince John, is on the very verge of decision?
Why hast thou not been, like me, among
these heartless cravens, whom the very name of King
Ivanhoe |
