| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: couple of hours in the park with her "out there" to guide me.
In the meantime, a pretty little girl, with curling hair, dressed
in a white frock, a rose-colored sash, and a broad frill at the
throat, had overheard or guessed the question and its answer. She
gave me a glance and vanished, calling in shrill, childish tones:
"Mother, here is a gentleman who wishes to speak to you!"
And, along the winding alleys, I followed the skipping and
dancing white frill, a sort of will-o'-the-wisp, that showed me
the way among the trees.
I must make a full confession. I stopped behind the last shrub in
the avenue, pulled up my collar, rubbed my shabby hat and my
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: The lives of men with billows; and thereafter,
When all that force of water-stuff which forth
From out the infinite had risen up
Did now retire, as somehow turned aside,
The rain-storms stopped, and streams their fury checked.
FORMATION OF THE WORLD AND
ASTRONOMICAL QUESTIONS
But in what modes that conflux of first-stuff
Did found the multitudinous universe
Of earth, and sky, and the unfathomed deeps
Of ocean, and courses of the sun and moon,
Of The Nature of Things |
