| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: the Vicomtesse, wholly untouched, laughing at his letter and his love,
as those can laugh who have ceased to believe in love. He could have
wished to have his letter back again. It was an absurd letter. There
were a thousand and one things, now that he came to think of it, that
he might have said, things infinitely better and more moving than
those stilted phrases of his, those accursed, sophisticated,
pretentious, fine-spun phrases, though, luckily, the punctuation had
been pretty bad and the lines shockingly crooked. He tried not to
think, not to feel; but he felt and thought, and was wretched. If he
had been thirty years old, he might have got drunk, but the innocence
of three-and-twenty knew nothing of the resources of opium nor of the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: justified in including the temples in the large centres as among
the most important business institutions of the country. In
financial or monetary transactions the position of the temples
was not unlike that of national banks. . . .
And so on. We may venture the guess that the learned professor
said more in that last sentence than he himself intended, for his
lectures were delivered in that temple of plutocracy, the
University of Pennsylvania, and paid out of an endowment which
specifies that "all polemical subjects shall be positively
excluded!"
Prayer-wheels
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: But, furthermore, earth of her own will[15] gives lessons in justice
and uprightness to all who can understand her meaning, since the
nobler the service of devotion rendered, the ampler the riches of her
recompense.[16] One day, perchance, these pupils of hers, whose
conversation in past times was in husbandry,[17] shall, by reason of
the multitude of invading armies, be ousted from their labours. The
work of their hands may indeed be snatched from them, but they were
brought up in stout and manly fashion. They stand, each one of them,
in body and soul equipped; and, save God himself shall hinder them,
they will march into the territory of those their human hinderers, and
take from them the wherewithal to support their lives. Since often
|
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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: The sun look'd on the world with glorious eye,
Yet not so wistly as this queen on him.
He, spying her, bounced in, whereas he stood:
'O Jove,' quoth she, 'why was not I a flood!'
VII.
Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle;
Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty;
Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is brittle;
Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty:
A lily pale, with damask dye to grace her,
None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.
|
